


The Wild Dark

by orangeflavor



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Female Mage Hawke - Freeform, Romance, Snippets, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-02-27 00:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2672654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeflavor/pseuds/orangeflavor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is Fenris. This is Fenris ready to be in it. Knee-deep and muddied and inescapable."  The story of Fenris and Hawke, in unseen, intimate, raw glimpses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Sweet Song

The Wild Dark

Chapter One: That Sweet Song

_"His gaze flickered to her mouth for only a second, but it was enough to stir the magic in his lyrium tattoos. Her bones thrummed in satisfaction."_

* * *

The first time she sees him there is a low humming she feels settling on her bones, a gentle thrum of magic that blossoms beneath her skin.

Hawke realized, much later, that it actually had nothing to do with him at all. It happened the moment the lines of lyrium tracing his skin blazed in rage and ruthlessness, Fenris' hand plunging into the guard's chest, his calloused fingers clenching around the man's beating, bleeding heart and then the slow ebb of lyrium as Fenris pulls back, the magic and the fury receding as quickly as it had burned alive. A moment. A barely-there second of enchantment. There was only the still warm heart at Fenris' feet now to attest to the elf's sudden violence.

She could have sworn she saw it thump softly on the pavement.

And then he turned his eyes to hers, the thrum of magic and lyrium gone from her mind, its unexpected music already fading from her ears and she finds that somewhere inside she has drawn back to the Fade to follow it. That sweet song lingering in just the right tones to make her wonder if it is memory or magic that is working on her mind. It is the first time she has felt the pull of lyrium outside the spirit world of the Fade, outside of the deceiving comfort of dreams. The pull of such pure magic anchored in the mortal world is halting enough to send her reeling from her body, where there is a sudden and painful crack of disconnect between the mind and the flesh, a separation that startles Hawke by it's unusual familiarity. That moment straddling the edge of dream and sleep, that moment of misstep where you panic in free-falling just before you catch your footing, that moment of detachment when you see the wound but you cannot _feel_ the pain.

It is a moment that terrifies Hawke into realizing she has always lived one step away from the cliff edge, and yet exhilarates her in wondering how far the fall is.

Fenris will later ask her what she thought of their first meeting and she will lie to him. She will not tell him that his branded magic left a saccharine taste to her tongue, that she cannot clearly remember what she was doing only moments before the song of his lyrium-lined body had pierced her mind. Something clenched within her chest when the light had dimmed and the song had silenced and she recognized the last of the flitting ghosts of the Fade just has they abandoned her to the sharp and austere world of mortality. Hawke was suddenly aware of her halted breath.

There was a meeting of eyes as he fully turned to her, something lost and unspoken crossing between the two, full of everything and nothing at all. "I am not a slave."

She blinked. Even his voice carried the song of lyrium.

She did not lie when she told him it was the lyrium that caught her, but the elf that held her.

* * *

"I cannot fathom how it is you have surrounded yourself with such companions."

Hawke paused her mug of mead halfway to her mouth and gave him an amusing smile. She set the drink down to lean both elbows on the table and cocked her head toward him. "What do you mean?"

Fenris pulled his lips tight for a moment, an uncomfortable set to his jaw that made Hawke wonder if he ever held a conversation past "hello" with a mage before. Or rather, if Fenris' type of conversation with mages would likely consist of "goodbye". But he held her gaze as he began to speak. "I do not mean this in a ridiculing manner. I simply wonder at the vast differences between those you would call friends."

Hawke quietly took another sip from her drink, her slight smile of intrigue never leaving her lips. She motioned for him to continue.

Fenris held his arms unmoving at his sides, rigid and seemingly immune to the jovial and nonchalant atmosphere of the Hanged Man where they sat. Around them, drink and laughter poured forth with abandon. "You travel in the company of a Guard Captain and yet you still enjoy the friendship of a thief."

Catching a glimpse of Isabela's form at the bar, Hawke pursed her lips in cool consideration. "Well," she offered, "technically, they're both captains so no great leap there." Her flippant smile returned.

Fenris murmured a soft reluctant agreement. "However," he continued, "you also consort with an abomination while your brother grows ever more vocal about the value of the Circle."

"I never could shut him up before," Hawke waved off dismissively, gulping down more mead and leaning back in her chair. She lowered the mug. "Don't see how I could now."

His drink sitting untouched atop the wood of the bar table, his hands resting still atop his knees, Fenris frowned slightly. "And among your misfit group of companions are two elves who could not be further apart on the spectrum of life."

At this, she finished her mead and set the empty mug atop the table. "And your point is?"

"Why?"

She looked at him for a moment. "Why?" she repeated.

There was something deeper than curiosity in his gaze, something longing and guarded that shouted in the silence for some kind of justification. Some kind of reason for their contact. Nothing at all to do with Aveline or Isabela or Varric or any of the others. But _their_ contact. His and hers. Some reason to validate this mutual growing dependency they shared. Some reason to assuage his wonder and alarm at what he would dare to say carried the potential of a friendship.

Because they weren't friends. They were conveniently helpful. They were financially opportune. They were even respectfully combative. But they were not friends.

Hawke seemed to pause in thought, rolling the word along her tongue silently. And the look of cautious expectance on his face made her think of that first night they drew weapons together. There was no trepidation in their movements, only a constant awareness of the other's position. Sharp and guarded eyes that spoke of a trust both would be slow to build. And yet there was this:

"I will need your help."

Fenris blinked in surprise as Hawke spoke the words softly, repeating what he had asked of her the night they met.

Her lips pulled into a smirk. "That's what you told me. 'I will need your help'."

There was a furrow to his brow, a request for explanation ready on his lips when she stood suddenly, grabbing her empty mug from the table.

"That's what they said, too."

Fenris narrowed his eyes, though in confusion, not suspicion. "That simple?"

There was an impishness to her smile as she inclined her head toward him. "That simple," she answered. And with that she took her mug to the bar in search of more mead.

Fenris sat staring at his own untouched glass.

* * *

There is something unpracticed and natural in the way his hand settles on her waist to nudge her gently to the side. She yields, subconsciously, moving with his coaxing so that he can step around her and walk to Varric as the dwarf leans over the chest he just picked open.

They were in a cave somewhere along the Wounded Coast, squeezing through the narrow passageways as they searched for the remaining Tal Vashoth. In this cramped room, Varric held up an engraved longsword that was locked inside the chest, motioning for Fenris to come over and take a look if it was something he's be interested in.

He stepped past Anders and in second nature, reached a gloved hand to Hawke's side, moving her in step with him as he came from behind her. She didn't even notice the motion but wondered at the sudden loss when the slight warmth of his touch had left her.

Varric eyed the exchange and raised a brow at Hawke.

Her eyes were elsewhere.

* * *

"You know, you risk arrest each time you visit here." It was meant in concern but Fenris couldn't help the way it came out as an accusation.

Hawke turned to Fenris as he spoke. "Yes, and you're an escaped slave whose former master has bids out everywhere to catch you, Isabela here's a thief and a smuggler-"

"Okay, seriously, I don't think you got _everyone_ within earshot."

"-and Anders has both the Circle and Grey Wardens looking for him. It's not exactly a utopian society for any of us." She raised a brow at the elf.

"I'll say," Anders offered, as he crossed his arms and looked between the two.

Hawke shrugged. "Besides, no one in the Gallows has any reason to confront me. I've helped a few of them, templars even."

"Yeah," Anders began, eyeing her slightly. "About that 'helping templars' bit…"

Hawke sighed. "They were in need, Anders. It's not like I helped them catch apostates or anything."

"I know, I know. It's just…I mean, you can't trust them. Catching and breaking mages is what they do. How can you expect that they'll return your kindness? You give it too freely."

There was a moment when Hawke considered Anders, when she wondered what it would be like to grow up in a Circle, what she might have been like had she lived the life that Anders had. And she wondered at what point he turned that resentment into loathing. She wondered how he woke up every morning with that kind of thing festering within you for years. But then she remembers that she didn't grow up in a Circle, she didn't grow up around the blind and the fearful.

"Your mistake, Anders," she began slowly, "is in separating templars from the scope of humanity. Before any of us are mage or templar, we are first people." She licked her lips, watching as Anders simply considered her silently. She figured that was as much a motion to continue as she was going to get. "If I refuse to aid someone because of what they are, I've only perpetuated the cycle. I then pass judgment on that person for what they are, instead of _who_ they are."

Fenris was not the one she expected to interrupt. "You cannot separate the two."

Anders raised his brows at that. "I think this is the first and last time I may ever agree with you, Fenris."

Fenris only scowled at the man. "What a person does determines his character. Our agency is our tool to creating who we are."

Hawke huffed, grinding her teeth slightly. "So when you were a slave, when you _had_ no agency, you were what? Nobody? Did your _lack_ of agency then determine that you were nothing?"

Fenris narrowed his eyes at her but his voice was as level as it was before. "That is another matter entirely. Mages have a choice when they make deals with demons."

"Okay, you had my respect for like 10 seconds there but –" Anders was cut off when Hawke stepped closer to Fenris, her fists clenching the slightest amount.

"Not all slaves are held by chains, Fenris." Her voice was tight and clipped. "But you are sometimes your own worst master. There may be mistakes along the way, but anyone who truly wants to aid others will always have my respect, whether I agree with their methods or not. And sometimes that is more valuable then actually liking them."

Fenris shook his head but his eyes had softened. There was a sympathy in his voice that irritated Hawke. "You are dangerously idealistic if you believe that. They will hurt you one day, you know? When your back is turned and it is in their benefit, these people you protect will gut you like a fish."

There was something challenging in Hawke's eyes. "Which is why I've chosen to surround myself with people I believe will _have_ my back. That hasn't changed has it?"

He sighed resignedly. "No, that has not changed."

She raised her brows at Anders in question.

"No, that hasn't changed," he agreed.

"Then what the hell are we arguing about?" Hawke asked, her hands raised in question. She stomped off toward Sol's shop and the others fell in line behind her.

Fenris grumbled slightly to himself. "Mages," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Anders glared at him. "Bigot," he shot back.

"Honestly," Isabela laughed, "if either of you put half this much passion into the bedroom you might just put me to shame."

* * *

Fenris' sword cuts across the raider's throat in practiced precision. As the body falls before him he sees the bolt of lightning Hawke shoots at the last of the ambush party. And he sees the arrow the raider gets off before the lightning hits him and he falls dead.

Hawke cries out in pain, jolted back as the arrow lands in her shoulder.

Fenris moves to her without thinking, but Aveline and Anders are closer. Aveline catches her as she stumbles back from the shot, both of them falling haphazardly to the floor. But Aveline breaks their fall and Anders' hands are glowing with healing energy before he even reaches them. Hawke grits her teeth and lies in Aveline's grasp, her hand gripping Aveline's arm for support as Anders pulls the arrow from the wound, her skin already knitting together from the mending magic of his touch.

There is something tight and unfamiliar in Fenris' chest. He can only watch and wait.

* * *

"Don't worry," Varric comforts Hawke, his hand landing on her shoulder, "your brother knows you have his best interest at heart. Even if it takes a mild death-threat to get his head out of his ass."

Hawke smiles appreciatively at the dwarf before he pats her shoulder roughly and walks off in search of his own brother. She sighs, and rests her elbows on her knees, getting as comfortable as the Deep Roads rock will let her. Around her, the other hirelings are setting up camp, the meager light from the torches casting flickering orange and shadows around the cavern.

"But I didn't think humans were that flexible. Can you really get your head up your…you know. Or did I miss something dirty again?" Merill is scrunching her nose in confusion, looking at Hawke with her head cocked to the side in question.

Hawke blinks at the elf for a moment, but can't help the laugh that escapes. "Oh Merill. It's just an expression. And not a dirty one. Well," Hawke stops and smiles again, shrugging her shoulders, "I guess that depends on your definition of 'dirty'."

"Hmm. I suppose I'll probably never understand humans. Well, I think I'll go talk to Sandal. You know he's rather good at enchantment?" Merill's face brightened with the mention of her fellow magical companion.

Her cheer was contagious. "So I've seen."

"I have so many questions I want to ask him."

Hawke let out a chuckle. "Good luck with getting anything past 'enchantment' or 'I like pie' out of him."

Merill's brows knit together in confusion again. "What does pie have to do with enchantment? Oh, is it one of his magical secrets?" Her smile lights up again. "I'm going to go ask him."

Before Hawke can even shake her head in amusement, Merill has left as well, leaving the mage to smile after her. Fenris, sitting beside her on the rock outcropping, has been silent throughout the exchange.

"If I am not intruding," he begins hesitantly, "why _did_ you leave your brother behind?" He is watching her in both concern and curiosity. There is nothing disapproving in his gaze. So Hawke answers him.

"It's really a whole jumble of reasons, not all of which may make sense to you." She gnaws on her bottom lip, her hands coming together. "Mostly, yeah, to keep him safe." She looks at Fenris.

"But?"

"But also because I can't stand him sometimes," she admits, smirking at the thought. "And because our mother should not have to worry if she will outlive all her children. And because he'd eat all our rations within the first four days. And because, well, maybe some part of me is selfish enough to not want to share the glory. And because I don't want to hear about how maybe Meredith isn't so far from the truth. And because I wanted to bring people who I could trust. Wholly and unreservedly."

It was instinctual, how his body had leaned toward her as she spoke, how his attention had not wavered from her face, how her voice had seemed to settle the shadows around them and inside him. He was not conscious of his breath as it stilled on her last words.

But she had not turned her gaze from his. And there was something offered between them that even she was not sure she had done. The dim torchlight of the cavern landed in slants upon his face, his green eyes piercing in the outline of faint light. Her lips parted unconsciously, her head lifting to stare at him further.

His gaze flickered to her mouth for only a second, but it was enough to stir the magic in his lyrium tattoos. Enough for Hawke's spine to straighten as the ghost of the Fade touched her mind, the music light and just out of reach, her ears straining for the notes of that sweet song. Her bones thrummed in satisfaction. She blinked, noticing the sudden silence, and saw Fenris had turned his eyes from hers. She blinked again, the murky cavern around them coming back to view, the shape of Fenris' form as he gripped his hands before him. She reminded herself to breathe.

"People you trust, hmm?" His voice was low and full of something Hawke could never understand.

She looked around the cavern as he did, her eyes alighting on each of her companions. "Well," she smirked, her eyes landing on Merill, "Some are here strictly for entertainment value."

Fenris followed her gaze and found Merill as she motioned with hands like claws and bared teeth to Sandal what he could only surmise to be the Dread Wolf. Sandal ran screaming.

Fenris' laugh filled the cavern.

* * *

He was three bottles in when he realized even Agreggio could not drown out the sound of her voice, the muted heat of her eyes.

* * *

"You know, I've seen you." Varric was standing in her threshold, one foot out the door when he stopped to say one last thing to Hawke.

She furrowed her brows in confusion, her hand on the open door, and she glanced around her newly furnished estate as though searching for someone else before turning to him with a bemused smile. "I should hope so Varric, or else I wouldn't trust you with Bianca anymore."

"I'm not talking about my eyesight, you daft woman," he said, laughing, but he had crossed his arms, something that told Hawke she wasn't going to shut the door behind him until he had said his piece. "I mean, I've seen you with Fenris."

"I'm not _with_ Fenris, Varric." She motioned in the air with her hands.

"Maybe. Maybe not yet," he said cryptically.

"You know," she began, eyeing him mischievously and crossing her arms over her chest, "if I knew you were going to be this much of a gossip I wouldn't have invited you over."

He turned to leave the house, stopping one last time to look at her, and his stare made her halt in her motion to close the door. "I'm not your father, Hawke. I'm not even a respectable role model really. But I am a man. And as part of the species I find it my duty to tell you that you've got his attention. Be careful where you put it."

* * *

"Yes Hawke, but what does it _do_?"

"It doesn't _do_ anything, Fenris. It's purely ornamental."

"It has no practical use?"

"None. But it _is_ cute."

"So it is a ship she cannot use. And one stuck in a glass bottle no less. You believe she will enjoy this?"

"Fenris, if I gave her rope and said it was from some mast she'd probably jump me."

"You have a point."

"I think she'll like it."

"It just does not seem practical. If it has no use, why keep it?"

"You don't use contractions, you know that?"

"What?"

"Contractions. 'Isn't'. 'Don't'. 'Won't'. You don't use them. But it'd be practical to. Save some time. You wouldn't sound so uptight."

"I resent that."

"Yeah, I know you do. Anyway, the point is that there's no practical reason for you not to use them. But you do anyway. Because it means something, serves some inner purpose. What purpose, I have no idea. You're kind of secluded that way. But regardless, it's the same thing. Sure, the ship in a bottle doesn't serve any practical purpose, but Isabela would like it anyway. Because it means something."

"I suppose you are correct in your thinking. And in that sense, I believe it will make a wonderful gift."

"Thank you."

"I just do not understand why you asked for my opinion."

"Maybe because it means something?"

Fenris was silent for a long time. "That is perhaps the greatest gift you could give me."

* * *

When she wakes she is screaming and sweating. She is scared. She thinks of Fenris. And she breathes again.

* * *

"You have not been a slave! You cannot sit there and preach to me about shackled pasts and festering pain." There was a growl to Fenris' tone that Hawke had never heard directed at her before. A dangerous undercurrent to his voice that promised of thrumming lyrium and barely checked anger.

Her cheeks flushed indignantly, her nostrils flaring. She was toe to toe with him before she knew she was moving, her legs taking her across the room swiftly and purposefully. She yanked the bottle from his grip, ignoring his bark of objection. The sound of crashing glass filled the decrepit mansion, filled the heated air between them, the growing fury blooming in each of their chests.

"How dare you-" he began lowly, his green eyes dark and menacing upon hers.

"How dare _you_ , Fenris!" Her breath was hot on his cheeks, spitting her anger across his face. He could practically taste it.

"You hide in here and play the poor, wounded slave of Danarius, while you spit on the outstretched hands of your friends!" Her anger found its way into her clenched fists, her white knuckles, the heaving of her chest with furious, labored breaths. A hand came up to jab roughly at his chest and he stumbled back slightly, caught off guard by her violent indignation.

But he steadied himself quickly, bearing down on her with a rage in his eyes and in his chest that burned to be released in the magic of his tattoos. He felt a tingling along the lines of lyrium but he swallowed thickly, pulled a sharp, venomous breath through his nostrils and calmed. "Friends?" he spat, his tone incredulous. "Do not delude yourself, Hawke, they have no reason to ascribe me as friend. I daresay the term is used lightly even for us. And that is on dangerous ground already." There was a dark rumble in his throat as he stared her down.

Her voice was steadily rising. "You cower away in hatred and revenge and you let it rule over you. This wallowing in self-pity is disgusting. You don't want to be free of Danarius at all! You want to continue to hate him. You need something to loathe and swear vengeance upon so you never have to account for your actions. You're selfish, Fenris," her voice cracked, her eyes burning with hot tears, and she wiped one hand across them angrily, defiant even still in her hurt.

"And you stink of misplaced self-righteousness. Spare me the sermon, mage." His words were hot against her face.

She flushed in anger once more. "You don't even recognize when someone tries to reach out to you, you blind bastard. And I swear on Andraste's flaming ass I will not spill tears over you. You don't deserve them. You're more a slave to your hatred than you ever were to Danarius." She scoffed at him, shaking her head in frustration, her clenched fingers cutting half-moons into her skin. "And it's pathetic."

There was barely an instant, barely a breath of time as the word left her lips before Fenris had her by the forearms and slammed against the wall. She cried out in pain and surprise as her head hit the wall behind her. Her eyes snapped open to the image of Fenris snarling in her face, the illumination of lyrium bright before her eyes. She could feel the magic building beneath her own skin.

She stared wide-eyed at him, but only for a moment, before she narrowed her eyes so suddenly he almost missed it. A sudden force of magical energy slammed into Fenris and threw him from her. He hit the floor a few feet away, and she heard him groan at the sudden unexpected impact. But he was scrambling to his feet immediately.

When he turned to her once more, his lyrium veins flaming up again, his breath stilled in his lungs. She wasn't waiting for another blow. She wasn't crouching in tense anticipation of a fight. She simply stood there, one hand grabbing at her collar in an oddly helpless looking manner. Fenris was stopped suddenly by the image of her quivering lip, her body trembling in rage and betrayal, the salt of her tears stinging her eyes. She blinked them back fiercely, the water hot against her lids, her shoulders hunched as if for protection. The glow of his veins dimmed immediately.

There was something so exposed about her in that one moment, in the stance of her form, before her eyes glazed over with a steady appraisal, that cold calculating look he'd seen only ever trained on someone who was soon to be dead. And something in his chest clenched painfully at the thought that he'd put it there. The thought that she had allowed him close enough to hurt her. That she had allowed him the offer of her vulnerability. And he had spat at it.

He swallowed down the sudden bile. That stinging slice of shame was harder.

"Never again," she warned lowly, her voice shaking only slightly. "Never again." It was barely a whisper.

He doesn't remember how he did it then but somehow he had turned and yanked the door to the mansion open, ran into the night and up and out and away from there. Away from her. He couldn't get far enough.

* * *

His door is blown open and his sword is at his side within heartbeats. He runs from the room to see Anders standing in his foyer. The confusion and alarm are wiped from his mind as anger sets in. "What do you think you are you doing, mage?" The words are tight and hissed. But Anders looks up and sees him at the top of the stairs.

He raises a hand to point at the elf, eyes narrowed and voice bellowing, "I don't know what the hell you did, but by the Maker, you better fix it." His eyes were hard and uncompromising, a threatening promise filling them. "Or I will."

That was all the warning he got before Anders stormed back out of the mansion. The silence was deafening.

* * *

He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand her boundless compassion.

When the slavers came for him, not a heartbeat had passed before she was cursing their mothers and showering flames upon them. She hadn't allowed his casual touch again, hadn't allowed his proximity. But she still fought for him. She let him kill Hadriana.

Nothing had ever seemed so hollow before.

* * *

It was Hawke's watch. She sat atop the rock outcropping overlooking the Wounded Coast path trailing down hill from them before it disappeared into the ocean. The night was chill and silver. If she listened close enough to the silence, she could hear the lyrium singing to her just beyond the edges of her mind.

Fenris was beside her suddenly, Isabela and Merill asleep in their packs behind them.

Hawke did not turn to look at him, and he did not move to sit beside her. She could hear his steady breathing.

There were long moments where only the sea moved before them.

"I cannot ask for forgiveness." His voice was low and even amidst the silence.

She did not turn.

"I…I had wanted to hurt you, Hawke." This time, his eyes on her, his voice caught on words that lodged painfully in his throat. "The lyrium and the loathing had demanded it of me."

She blew a soft calming breath into the air. She watched the waves rolling in the distance.

His gaze had not left her face. "Do you understand? I almost hurt you, Hawke."

"But you didn't." There was nothing but gentle waves and easy melody to her voice.

"I would have." He couldn't explain the urge to touch his hand to her cheek, to wonder if she would turn from him. He didn't reach for it.

"But you _didn't_."

"I do not deserve your companionship." Her hands were settled on the rock beneath her. Her hands. So close. Her touch so missed since she had stolen it back from him.

"And yet you have it."

"And yet I have it." His fingers grazing her hand. "I…I am sorry, Hawke. I…" His words are no longer his own. They are lying on the floor between them somewhere, bleeding their meaning into the dirt at their feet. There is something sharp and caught on his voice.

She looks at him.

He cannot ask for anything more.

But she pats the rock next to her, scoots a little to her right and turns back to watch the waves. "Sit with me, Fenris."

They watch the sun come up.

* * *

She can't remember the last time she loved someone's touch so much, loved the feel of his fingertips, whispering across her skin, his fingers grazing her ribs with a reverence that almost made her cry. The feel of his muscles as she grips his shoulders, how they churn and roll beneath the pads of her fingers, swirling just under her touch, as though she was never the one who wielded magic. That wondrous moment of disconnect, the free-fall, the sweet song of something stronger than lyrium-tinted skin, something that tastes like gold dust and breathes like the wild dark, half-waking and half-dreaming coming together beneath her palms, trembling beneath her skin until she feels it release itself in a breath expelled across his neck. His skin splattered with the mastery of worlds and light, and she grips him tighter to her for fear she'll be able to breathe again.


	2. Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It happens when they least expect it. When their hands are bloodied and their muscles trembling."

The Wild Dark

Chapter Two: Stay

_"It happens when they least expect it. When their hands are bloodied and their muscles trembling."_

* * *

Her room is warm and open and dimly lit by candle when Hawke wakes. She cannot remember a night she slept without dreaming of Bethany but tonight the Fade left her sleep uninterrupted. There is an ease in her waking. And when she wakes, somehow she knows he will not stay.

It is in the way the balcony doors lie open in the evening breeze, the way the candles around the room have burned all night, the way he sits at the edge of the bed, his fingers barely grazing her arm as she opens her eyes to his.

She does not say anything when she sees him fully clothed, waiting patiently for her to wake, but something she thought she left back in Lothering made her pull the sheets up to cover her chest as she slowly sat up. Fenris glanced at the subconscious motion but said nothing. She rubs at her eyes momentarily and glances around the orange light filled room before resting her gaze back on Fenris. His lips are tight. He looks down to her hand gripping the sheets.

"I…" his voice is rough and uneven, and Hawke wonders how long he sat practicing these words before her lids had fluttered open. But she makes no response. She only looks at him. Somehow she knows he will not stay.

His green eyes are on hers again. "I remembered everything."

There is a slight furrow to her brow and a tightening of her fist in the sheets.

"For a moment," he continues, clearing his throat. His fingers trace hers but her hands do not unclench from the sheets. "For a moment I remembered everything. And then it was gone."

It was like the afterimage of a flame. As though he blew out a candle and where once the flare burned alive and fierce and infinite, there was a sudden darkness and the momentary outline of a flickering glow playing on his eyes. Enough to make you wonder if there was ever a flame in the first place. His mind had reached for the memories but they were gone before he could follow them, leaving a lingering afterimage that posed more questions than answers left in their wake.

Hawke's eyes fall to the tattoos splaying his arm and she reaches out the hand not holding the cover to her chest to tentatively trace the lines. "Did it hurt?"

Her voice is colored with concern and wonder and her hazel eyes, when they meet his, are already reflecting what he knows he will say soon.

He sighs. "No. And yes. It is not the pain that has me…upset."

Her hand stills over his arm and pulls back to lie in her lap. She licks her lips. "But you are upset."

Fenris stands and walks to the open balcony, leaning one arm on the fireplace mantle as the light flames beside him slowly fade. His back is to her and she cannot see the pained indecision on his face. "I am sorry. I do not think I can do this."

Her voice is soft and expectant when she answers him. "I thought you wanted your memory to return." But there is something that tells Hawke this is an empty point, an empty sentence to fill the space she knows he will not cross. Not yet. But it is better than looking at his back.

He turns his head to catch her gaze over his shoulder. "Not like this. Not…" he swallows thickly, turns his head back to gaze out at the dark gardens below her Hightown balcony. "I do not want the memory of your touch to be tainted by such things." It is when he says these words that he knows she was right when she called him selfish. But he knows no other way to be and he thinks that he might have made a mistake to visit her bed tonight.

There is a ruffling noise as Hawke leaves the bed to stand sheet-covered at his side. She does not touch him, does not look at him. She stands there, and she breathes with him. When he breaks from his lean on the mantle to turn to her he has already expected the anger of her gaze, but it is tampered by an exhaustion that has nothing to do with her body. "Stay", she breathes quietly, harshly.

His hand rises to brush her shoulder but stops at the wetness dotting the corners of her eyes. She sniffs once, swallows, blinks away the moistness until her face is as empty as her voice. "Stay." Her whisper breaks him in ways she would never understand and he is already turning for the door.

Somehow, she knew he would not stay.

* * *

"Well, what the hell crawled up your ass this morning, Hawke?" Aveline sheathed her sword as she posed the question to the mage.

Hawke scowled at the Captain but said nothing as she returned her staff to its carrier on her back. The venomous spider she just dispatched with unusually furious flames was still squealing in its death throes as the last of the horde fell before them. Isabela looked up from her nearby rifling of the dead mine worker to quirk a brow in their direction. "Obviously no one who knows how to make a good impression."

Anders scrunched his nose in distaste. "I honestly could have done without that, Isabela." His hands were glowing over Hawke's elbow as she held her wounded arm to him.

"Quiet, whore," Aveline snapped, "Before I collar you for lewd and lascivious behavior." But there was something amused in her tone.

"Oh, I'm sure you'd like to collar me," Isabela countered with a smirk, rising from her squat on the Bone Pit's cavern floor. "I always did peg you for the role-playing type."

Aveline pursed her lips in a retort but Hawke interrupted them first. "Can we just finish clearing out these passages so my men can get back to work?"

The wound on Hawke's elbow had closed over and the magic left Anders hovering hands. But he held her elbow gently as she moved to pull away. She turned to him questioningly.

"Are you sure you're okay?" His voice was low and meant not to be heard by the two other squabbling women beside them.

Hawke huffed at first but softened at the look of concern in his eye. She inclined her head toward Anders and smiled slightly, though it did not reach her eyes. "Thank you Anders. But yeah it's…it's fine. Nothing important."

He released her and stepped aside to move along the passageway with her. "If you say so. Just know that your friends ask out of concern," he glanced at Aveline and Isabela arguing behind them, "However misguided it may be." He chuckled and looked back to Hawke as they walked further into the mine.

She shrugged noncommittally. "I just…I just have to be mad for a couple days or something and then I'll be good. I promise. There are worse things in this world."

Anders' look was somber as he eyed her. "Yes there are."

There was something warming and comforting in his presence beside her as they walked, even as Hawke knew it would take more than a few angry days to settle her.

But she was right. There are worse things in this world.

* * *

She learned how to look at him without looking, how to speak with him without speaking. And he learned how to accept that it was more than he deserved.

* * *

"Is that a letter from your brother?" Fenris asked the question after several minutes of hesitation, trying to decide if it was worth asking since she probably wouldn't talk to him about such things.

They were all sitting gathered at the wood table of Varric's room in the Hanged Man. There were pints all around the table. The warm heat from the candles surrounding the room mingled with the laughter and voices to settle comfortingly on Hawke's bones. The relaxed air was something missed lately since her return from the Deep Roads. Around the table, Varric and Isabela were teaching Merrill how to play poker while Anders and Aveline interjected occasionally, throwing the whole table into arguing the finer points of the game.

Hawke had pushed her chair from the table just enough to pull the letter from her robe pocket and read it in relative privacy. Fenris hadn't been paying much mind to the haphazard card game their company was playing and instead watched Hawke as she perused the paper in her hands. There was nothing in her face to indicate the message's contents but the paper was worn and looked as though it had been folded and refolded a few times. It was a letter she had read before.

When Fenris asked the question quietly he didn't really expect an answer, but she looked up at him. She pursed her lips and refolded the letter, sliding it back into her robe pocket. "Yeah," she finally answered. "The one he sent from templar recruitment."

Fenris nodded at her answer, looking at their companions around the table. He shuffled in his seat for a moment before continuing. "He has not written to you since?"

She leaned back in her chair, her hands coming to rest on the arms. "A couple letters. He mostly writes to Mother." She paused as she watched him before adding on acidly, "Besides, he really shouldn't be associating with a _mage_ , right?"

Fenris lowered his eyes. "You are his sister."

"Yeah, and that means nug shit compared to the corruption I harbor, right?" Hawke's voice had risen slightly, but she was careful not to warrant the attention of the whole table. Her eyes were narrowed accusingly at Fenris alone.

He pulled in a slow breath, staring at her through confused eyes. "I never-"

She sat forward, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. "Oh but you've thought it. That's what templars are for, after all, to keep the malicious mages in line. And I bet you're just waiting for the day my brother turns me in. It wouldn't be the first time I saw a man's back." With her last words hissed through clenched teeth, she pushed her chair back sharply, catching the attention of their companions around the table as the laughter suddenly halted. Hawke glared at Fenris one last time before throwing a few coin on the table for drinks and storming out of the room.

Everyone was left to look around the table in bewilderment at her sudden exit. Fenris gripped the arms of his chair, his jaw set rigid. Anders set his cards on the table and leaned back to glare at the elf. "What the hell did you-"

"One word, mage," Fenris seethed, not looking at the man as he too left his chair at the table and headed for the door. " _One_ word more."

Fenris was out in the chill night air and halfway up the walk to Hightown when Aveline caught his arm with a gruff "Hey!". Fenris whirled, snarling, but settled as Aveline crossed her arms in front of him. The Captain of the Guard was not someone he wanted to make an enemy of in this city. "What?" he asked lowly.

Aveline sighed and uncrossed her arms, her face easing into something Fenris almost would have called soft if he had not known her. "Four years," she said simply, as though Fenris had any idea what she was referring to. At his look of question she continued, unaffected by his glower. "I don't know what you two were talking about when she stormed out and-," she raised a hand to stop whatever words were forming on Fenris' tongue when he opened his mouth to retort. " _And_ it is none of my business."

He stopped at that.

"But whatever she has said to you in anger, please, understand that it comes from someplace still hurting." Aveline touched her hand to her chest, as though to signify her words. "Tomorrow it will be four years since her sister Bethany died. And with Carver away from home now…"

Fenris blinked at Aveline, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. He turned his gaze from hers, looking up the path to Hightown that would eventually lead to Hawke's doorstep.

"Sometimes," Aveline continued, pulling in a chill breath from the night air and wrapping her arms around herself. "Sometimes worse than not having family is having family you cannot be with," she finished pointedly.

Fenris turned back to Aveline and quirked a brow at her. She simply shrugged, rubbing her hands down her forearms. "Something to consider." With that she turned and headed back toward the Hanged Man. Fenris was left to watch her.

* * *

It happens when they least expect it. When they are running through Bartrand's haunted halls and the voices and possession are rampant. When they are each screaming in their violence, hands deft on swords and staffs and the song of lyrium is hidden just beneath the rushing of blood in their ears. When his sword is mid-arc through the air on a path to the abomination rampaging her. When the energy of her magic is blinding in its explosion from her. When she is sure she was not fast enough but somehow, the abomination is slumping before her and she sees green eyes and glowing skin sprayed with blood. Her vision floods but she has no time to thank him, no time to do anything but swing her arms around to the mercenary raising a mace in his grip. A sheet of ice rushes from her hands and stills his swing just as Varric's bolt comes from beside her, shattering the frozen man to the floor at their feet.

And so it goes, for the first wave, for the second and the third. When in each of their movements there is apology and there is forgiveness and it is only for each other. When their hands are bloodied and their muscles trembling. When it is only man and only woman and there is no time to explain this blistering thing called emotion between them. When all they know is the fight and how to survive it. When the bodies have stilled and the air is singed with magic and agony and they stand beside each other, Varric shaking Bartrand in his madness. When their eyes meet and she whispers "okay" as his hand slips into hers and she learns to accept that he needs time. When there is understanding where there wasn't before and they are better for it now. It happens when they least expect it.

* * *

When Hawke and her companions had encountered Feynriel in the Fade, Fenris had not expected to betray Hawke so quickly. It weighed on him. It was what brought him to her door this night. He had stood before her mansion for several minutes clenching and unclenching his fists until Bodahn had opened the door by chance and stumbled into him. The dwarf ushered Fenris in quickly, calling to Hawke upstairs before he made his way back outside to head to the market. There was a moment of quiet anticipation when he caught her at the top of the stairs and each had stared at each other silently, breathing in trepid hesitation. She had moved first, motioning for him to come with her toward the library as she lit the candle sitting on top of the table in the center of the room. They sat in unison and Fenris had always hated awkward silences.

"I must apologize," he began, his hands resting atop the table as they sat together before the fireplace. "I cannot believe that I was so swift to turn my back on you in the Fade. There is nothing I can say that may atone for that." His eyes were grave, his knuckles white as he gripped his hands together.

Hawke watched his tense position for a few wary seconds but sighed resignedly after some consideration. There was too much now before them and between them and behind them to think of atonement. She only shrugged and leaned back in her own chair. "It's alright, Fenris. It's the Fade. It's hard to trust anything in there." It was something she had known for years.

"But you were steadfast in your conviction. You never faltered. How is it that I was so weak?" His eyes searched hers and she understood that there was no answer she could give him that would make any sense.

She sighed, reaching back to rub the back of her neck. "I've had experience in the Fade. As a mage, it's…it's something that never leaves you." She eyed him for a moment, gnawing on her bottom lip.

Fenris lowered his gaze to his hands. "And that is the temptation you face every waking moment?"

There was nothing accusatory in his tone, only wondrous. It was enough to keep her talking. "Yes." She leaned forward, laying her own hands on the table, feeling the heat from the candle between them. "It's like – I don't know…otherworldly. It's freeing and powerful and dangerous. Because I know how close to destruction I come every time I allow that freedom inside." She put a hand to her heart, feeling the comforting thump beneath her fingertips.

"Not all mages are so…unaffected…as you are." His words were firm and unrelenting. Regardless of everything he had seen in her. But she would have it no other way. She would rather he be strong in his convictions against her than be weak in indecision.

She felt no anger though, and it surprised her that she could not fault him in this moment. An experience that should have nurtured something of awareness if not respect to mages' situations had only seemed to dig him deeper in his distrust. "And not all demons are as convincing as you've seen," she retorted.

Fenris watched her through hooded eyes. "You find me frail in the face of demons." It was a statement but even he was unsure of it.

"No," she answered, shaking her head. "It's hard to explain if you haven't lived with it. Let me…let me start from the beginning." Her hands were outstretched on the table, her offer open between them and there is nothing in her face that tells him she will think any less of him if he refuses. But he nods silently, motioning her to continue. There is more than curiosity in his decision. There is a need to understand why his dreams are filled with songs of lyrium he doesn't know the words to, and why there is nothing to settle the shadows inside him but the heat of her touch and the intensity of her gaze.

Hawke swallows thickly, pulling in a deep breath as she starts an explanation she is not even sure she understands herself. "Have you heard the Chant of Light? Or at least, the important bits the Chantry goes on about?" At his quirked eyebrow she rolls over his amusement and continues speaking, her hands motioning in front of her with her words. "Well, to be honest, I'm not a religious sort but my father wanted me to learn the stuff. Said it was important to know the arguments against our kind. And that there's more to be interpreted in the Maker's words than the propaganda of zealots."

Hawke stood from her chair and began to pace the carpeted floor of her library. "The Chantry teaches us that the Maker made his firstborn in his image but he was disappointed in them. He gave them a world of no substance and no struggle and saw that they created nothing. 'By your will all things are done. Yet you do nothing. The realm I have given you is formless, ever-changing. And he knew he had wrought amiss.'"

Fenris blinked in surprise at Hawke's direct quote from the chant. It stunned him into silence as he watched her move across the floor before him, her hands waving in motions with her words.

"So the Maker made man. And in man he created opposition, with sky came the sea, with darkness came the light, and all things came in struggle with other forces. This is the nature of man. And the Chant tells us that the Maker says 'To you, my second-born, I grant this gift: in your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame, all-consuming and never satisfied. From the Fade I crafted you, and to the Fade you shall return each night in dreams, that you may always remember me.' You see," Hawke turned to catch Fenris' gaze as she laid her hands on the back of the chair before her, "the Fade is the closest to the Maker as we may hope to be. And the spirits of the Fade only seek to gain the Maker's favor once more by inhabiting his second-born creation, men. It is in our dreams, in the world of the Fade, that we become nearer to our creator. And it is in possessing the creator's pride that _spirits_ become nearer to their creator."

Her cheeks were flushed with fervor, her words quick and excited and Fenris could not keep his eyes from her as her words filled the warm air around them. "Magic is the breath of the Maker, what crosses the Veil to share our two worlds. It is in all of us. That is why blood is so powerful in casting spells. The magic is _in_ the blood. Just as the magic is in the lyrium in the Fade. Lyrium and blood are the cross channels between the Fade and the mortal realm and the reason each has such a powerful pull is because in each of us is the urge and the need to belong, to be accepted by our creator. To find some purpose and reason for existing. And maybe it is not my fault for wanting such but the Maker's fault, for creating this 'unquenchable flame' in me that yearns for something more than what I can give. And though I know the spirits are only searching for the same purpose and fulfillment that I am, it does not stop me from recognizing the difference between our worlds. It does not stop me from recognizing that I may lose myself in the search for the Maker. And that is something I am not willing to yield. That is what makes me strong." Her words were breathless as she finished, her eyes bright with sincerity and a passion to her features that left Fenris in awe.

"And maybe," her voice was soft, hesitant, her fingers tight on the leather of her chair. Fenris could not help his instinctive lean toward her to hear her more clearly. She swallowed at the look in his eyes, but she understood that having convictions was more important than having the _right_ convictions. And it didn't matter if her words meant nothing to him. Because they meant something to her. "Just maybe, mages are closer to the Maker than everybody thinks."

* * *

There are nights Fenris starts to wonder if the past is worth rehashing.

* * *

"Oh Maker, and I thought Hawke was trying to ask me out!" The group around the table burst into raucous laughter at Donnic's remark mid-story. Aveline smiled and blushed behind her hand, her other arm linked through Donnic's on the table. Hawke shook her head and took a swig of her drink. Wiping her mouth she pointed a tipsy finger in Aveline's direction. "You missy, had me in a rather uncompromising position." She giggled, her smile brilliant against her flushed cheeks. The music of the Hanged Man was especially joyous tonight in congratulations of the Captain's engagement.

Isabela set her mug down and pulled her feet from the table. "Well, I'm in a right mood for dancing now. Varric?"

At his name, the dwarf finished the drink in his hand and stood from the table, his laughter rumbling up from his chest. "Alright, Rivaini, but watch where you put your hands. Bianca's the jealous type."

Isabela mocked a gasp, a hand to her chest. "I would never, Varric." But she was beaming as they stepped onto the floor and Donnic and Aveline were already following them.

"My lady?"

Hawke's attention was caught by the hand outstretched to her and she looked up the arm to find Anders' warm face smiling down at her. She grasped his hand and pulled herself up, stumbling slightly into his arms as they laughed together and moved toward the other dancing couples.

From where Fenris sat beside the bar, Anders' hands were just a bit too comfortable on Hawke's hips, their bodies were just a bit too close and her smile was just a bit too bright to not be shown in his direction.

* * *

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. His name is _DuPois_?" Hawke raises her eyebrows at the name but at Emeric's look she can't hold it in any longer and cackles into her hand. Fenris rubs a hand down his face and Hawke wonders silently if it's blasphemy to laugh at a templar.

* * *

There is nothing he can say that will make sense in this horrible mess of too-late and not-enough. There are no words that will do anything but insult her grief so he just stands before her as she holds her head in her hands and whispers "Mother" over and over. There is no more heat to be felt from the extinguished candles in the room. There is no more comfort to be felt in the silk sheets of the bed she sits on. There is no more strength in her hands to rub at the tears so they fall unabashed and uncontrolled down her cheeks as her shoulders tremble.

But he cannot just stand there. So he moves silently toward her and sits beside her on the bed, the cool breeze from the open balcony reminding him of that night she had asked him to stay and he had turned his back on her. He looked away from the open doors and turned his gaze to her shuddering form. She did not reach out to him. She did not lean into him. And when he hesitantly reached a hand to touch her shoulder he could have sworn there was the slightest flinch from his touch. But it was barely there and she was too far past caring that she didn't move when he laid his hand more assuredly along her shoulder. The air was damp and clenched in her lungs as she sobbed into her hands. His touch slid along her back and drifted to her neck. He swallowed, and there was a moment where he felt he might have been wrong to come to her tonight.

But before he can second guess himself she lifts her face from her hands to lock eyes with him and he cannot move. There is nothing glorious in her pain, nothing magical or ethereal in her tears. There is nothing but brutal, unadulterated vulnerability in her eyes and her throat is raw with the screams. Her hands are shaking. There is nothing beautiful in her grief. There is the strangled hiccup in her throat as she sucks in a shaky breath, the catch of more tears threatening her voice and then her head in his lap and tears and snot and worse being smeared into his tunic as she grips the material to her face and tries to quiet the wails. His hand is in her auburn strands and there is nothing romantic in the way the filtered moonlight lights upon her hair. It is only stark and strange and makes him run his hand from her hair to her neck and rest along her shoulder blades in motions that he hopes are comforting but knows are nothing more than graceless.

So he does what he knows. He does what he feels, and his hands are rough and unexpected when they pull at her shoulders to raise her to eye level. Her eyes are muddied with tears and there is the caked streak of Quentin's blood still clinging to her cheek. She is gasping for breath in between sobs and her fingers are trembling as they wipe at her nose. She moves with his direction because the ache in her chest is too strong to allow anything else. And she doesn't care if he hates her like this. There's a part of her that wishes it even now.

"Hawke." Her name on his tongue is like nothing she has ever heard. It is like a song she used to know but can't recall and it brings fresh tears to her eyes as she squeezes them shut to his demanding green ones. But he doesn't let her.

"Hawke," he repeats, harder, surer, shaking her shoulders so that her eyes open to his and he can taste the salt from her tears when his lips are on her cheeks. But it is not enough to hold her, and her fingers grasp at his chest when the throb in her heart has found its way to her throat and nothing she says can make it out alive and unscathed. So his hands find their way into her hair and his mouth has found its way to hers.

There is nothing tender in the way his breath fills her mouth, nothing soft in the way his tongue slides against hers. And there is nothing comforting in his hands as they hold her face to his, nothing gentle in the way he presses into her. But her whimpers have quieted and her shudders have ceased and there is nothing now that can stop him from tasting her.

When she breaks from him suddenly, her fingers digging into his arms and she can feel his breath fanning her cheek, she finds his eyes in the dark and discovers her voice has filled the room before she even realized she had spoken.

"Stay."

Her whisper breaks him in ways she would never understand and he is already leaning into her again, already sighing into her mouth as they breathe together in the wild dark.

Somehow, she knew he would stay.


	3. Liberation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Her hand grips desperately at her chest, where her heart beats beneath the weight of demons their world has no name for."

The Wild Dark

Chapter Three: Liberation

_"Her hand grips desperately at her chest, where her heart beats beneath the weight of demons their world has no name for."_

* * *

When he kisses her he is convinced magic should never feel this good. The enchantment of her touch is yet another kind of slavery. And there is something dark and addictive when his hands are on her skin, something treacherous in her taste on his tongue. But when he wakes in the morning to the heat of her back at his chest and he finds his hand has found hers in the night, he worries he might be slipping. He worries he might not give a damn what magic she wields if it means those hands are on him. He holds her sleeping form tighter to him and he is not sure which fear it is that has him trembling now.

* * *

They have not been together again since the night of Leandra's death. She has been distant, and yet, not uncomfortable in his presence. There is a subtlety to her drifting gaze, her absent righteousness in battle, her tense mouth and quick lip to even the closest of her friends. Something in the harsh arc of her shoulders tells him there is something heavier here then grief. But she will not speak with him about it and he is not one to ask. The only comfort he has now, though cold and unfamiliar, is that she has allowed his casual touch again. And it is not enough. Where once before it was a warm and secret invitation to touch it is now only an indifference and lack of caring to move away when his hand is near, because she doesn't have the strength anymore to be angry with him. There is too much in the world to be angry about than to wallow in regret and heartache over a night years ago that never truly spoke of promise. So instead she sucks in sweet air through clenched lungs throbbing with the weight of too many nights spent crying over a mother that will never return. And it was true. And it was final. And it was anything but over. It is easier to ignore the brush of his hand on her waist as they mill through the Hanged Man, than to delve into the conversation that acknowledging the motion would inevitably bring about. She does it unconsciously and now it is Fenris who cannot keep his attention on anything else. At night, his lyrium markings burn in recollection. He finds that it is no longer Danarius who haunts him.

* * *

"What the hell was that?" Aveline's sharp bark at Hawke takes her by mild surprise. The Captain sheathed her sword and turned a suspicious glare to the mage.

Hawke returns her staff to the carrier on her back and leans her weight back on one foot. She shrugs noncommittally at Aveline. "What?" Her tone is distant and quiet and unlike anything Aveline has ever known of Hawke.

Aveline's eyes narrow at the woman before her and she can sense Merril and Anders's cautious eyes as the two move around them to check the raiders' stash. "That last raider. You let him get way too close before you hit him with a lethal spell. His blade was inches from your neck, Hawke. What the hell were you thinking?" Her tone is taut and harsh, her hands on her hips in a way that makes Hawke wonder how the Guardsmen deal with that look on a constant basis.

Hawke sighs and moves to continue on the path up the Wounded Coast. "I had it under control. Leave it, Aveline." The remoteness and yet stinging cold of Hawke's voice makes Aveline's nostrils flare in frustration as she reaches a hand to grab Hawke's arm and halt her.

"Hawke, don't you turn your back on- " But she cannot finish her sentence. Instead, Hawke has turned her gaze to Aveline in heated quickness and the Captain is shocked to see the momentary flare of magic in Hawke's hands. The mage moves to lay her palm on Aveline's hold to release her arm. There is a dangerous promise in her glare and the tightening of her fingers over Aveline's hand that scares her in a way she hasn't felt since Wesley's death.

"Leave it." With that, Hawke's back is already retreating and Aveline finds she cannot seem to move her feet.

* * *

Hawke turns from Merril's indignant face and walks from her house. She won't help her with her stupid mirror. Hawke curls her fingers into fists. She passes the elves in the Alienage without seeing them. She cannot hear Isabela's call from her perch on the stool in front of the Hanged Man's entrance. She keeps walking. She finds herself in the Gallows. For the first time, Hawke looks up at the worn faces of the statue slaves lining the walls. There is more than pain on those faces. There is more than shame. There is more than resignation. She squints, and swears she sees trace lines of tears trailing the copper cheeks of faces she has never really seen before. Hawke closes her eyes and halts the shaking breath from leaving her lips. Her hand grips desperately at her chest, where her heart beats beneath the weight of demons their world has no name for.

It's just a stupid fucking mirror. And she won't help.

* * *

"You know, Hawke," Varric began, shifting Bianca over his shoulder as they climbed the winding path along the Wounded Coast, "you're probably not impressing the right kind of people if you're the Qunari's first suspect when one of their scouting parties goes missing."

Hawke threw a look at him, eyebrows raised. "Yes, well, that's why we're here. We'll find the damn party for them and they can stop glaring at me with those…glaring eyes." She pursed her lips and continued climbing.

Isabela laughed. "'Glaring eyes'? Oh love, you really are adorable when you pout." The rogue peered around the next bend and caught sight of a fallen Qunari just past the next rock outcropping. She quieted her giggling and immediately held an arm out to stop the others behind her. Hawke, Varric and Fenris slipped behind Isabela silently and followed her lead as she made her way around the sharp curve of the path.

When there was no sign of life, only the fallen group of Qunari warriors, Isabela stepped from the shadows of her rock cover and motioned for the others to follow. "Well, we certainly found the missing Qunari. Although, Hawke," she smirked as she looked to the mage, "this doesn't really help you with the 'glaring' problem. I suspect this will only make it worse." She knelt down and began to rummage through the packs littering the ground.

Hawke sighed and leaned against the rock ledge along the path. She wiped a hand across her forehead, the sweltering summer sun plastering errant curls of auburn to her cheeks with heavy sweat. "They'll probably blame it on me somehow and –"

Hawke stilled.

This feeling. She knew this feeling. She had only a moment's notice, only a fraction of a second to recognize the light hum of magic that steeped her mind momentarily in the Fade, her vision clouding into wisps only long enough for her to grip the rock behind her in terror as the ground in front of her fell into flame and shadow. Suddenly before her were the flashing eyes of an abomination, its shoulders and arms curling into itself with mutated and scarred flesh.

It still held the faint scent of humanity.

"Hawke!"

Fenris' bellow came just before the abomination swung a lumbering arm toward her and smashed into her cheek, sending her flying into the rock beside her. Something collided sharply with her other cheek and for several horrifying seconds, her vision went cloudy. There was the harsh metallic taste of blood in her mouth and she blinked her burning eyes open to find shades emerging from the sand beneath them and the abomination rampaging toward her. She reached for her staff and froze.

But it was enough. Enough of her hesitation to grant the abomination a second's advantage. Its arms came up again, something dark and twisted burning in what used to stand for eyes, its deep and guttural groan shaking through to her bones. Her hands came up in defense, and there was no flash of magic this time.

It only took a few seconds. Maybe a minute or two. The battle. It started with her bruised cheek. And it ended with Fenris standing before her, his sword raised and slicing through abominated flesh and wasted humanity. He cut through the abomination's chest just as it came down on Hawke, his sword sweeping just past her own face and then the burning, putrid sensation of the monsters blood splashed across her cheeks. The abomination slumped to the ground, still. She pulled in a sharp breath, the bitter taste of perverse magic tainting her tongue and she wiped a hand roughly across her face, spitting into the sand at her feet.

She looks back up to see Fenris still standing there, staring at her, his form cast in dark silhouette against the sun at his back, his lyrium markings burning brightly. She can see the green of his eyes from where she slumps against the rock. Behind him she catches sight of Isabela and Varric quickly dispatching the last of the shades. She looks back to Fenris and pulls in a shaky breath, the stinging mix of her own blood and that of the abomination lingering on her tongue. She suddenly tastes bile and shoves a hand to push past Fenris as she retches violently into the sand. She squeezes her eyes shut to the sharp pull in her gut and coughs out the last film of bile, her hands bracing her form against the boulder, the sharp edges of rock cutting into her palms each time she heaves.

She can feel the others' eyes on her but they say nothing. And she knows there's no hiding it now. There's no turning back. So she cries and gags until her knees buckle and she slumps down into the sand, her hands trailing blood down the rock. She looks up at the red path and feels the heaviness of Fenris' palm at her back.

* * *

Hawke is sitting in the dark of her library when she hears his footsteps at the threshold to the room.

"Hawke." Fenris can see the faint outline of her form through the soft dim of moonlight coming through the window. It is not enough light to see the etching of weariness on her face. She doesn't have the patience to listen to him tonight.

"I'm sorry, Fenris," she begins as she stands from the armchair and makes her way to the door. "But I'm really tired tonight. Can we talk another time?" She has made it to the doorway where he stands blocking her path into the hall. She sighs and looks at him with a face he does not recognize anymore. His mouth sets in a frown.

"No, Hawke. It cannot wait."

Her brow twitches in irritation and she moves to push past him and into the torch-lit hallway to escape into her room. And then she remembers he has encroached even there.

Fenris steps closer to block her movement from the dark room, one hand coming to rest on the doorframe. His silent stance frustrates Hawke and she huffs angrily, her hands coming up to push against Fenris' chest. He will not move.

"Damn it, Fenris," she growls beneath her breath, her hands glowing threateningly with the hint of magic. "Get out of the fucking way before I move you myself."

"No. Not until this is resolved." His gaze is firm and unrelenting.

She cannot stand to look at him right then. She turns from him sharply, throwing her hands in the air. But Fenris can see the slight, fragile quiver to her shoulders as she tears her eyes from his. The room is filled with half shadows and shallow truths, and Hawke does not think she has the strength to wade through them anymore. "Well, excuse me if I'm not up to warming your bed tonight, Fenris." She steps further into the dark.

Fenris is quick in his steps to her, his hand immediately on her shoulder to turn her back around. She is reluctant. "That is not what this is, Hawke. I do not want…I only wish to…" His voice trails off. And he realizes even he does not know how he got to her door that night, what words he had dreamed of saying to her, what questions he had hoped to answer. All of it, gone. Gone in the instant she lifts her vacant eyes to his. He can only watch and silently scream inside that this is not the woman who makes his skin burn and ache with a single glance. But he knows this look. He has seen it in the mirror a dozen times over. This is the face of a shell. This hollow husk of a woman before him.

He wanted to shake the fury back into her.

"Hawke, please." His hands are on her shoulders, his face leaning in to peer closer at her blank features. "You have to tell me what is going on."

She pulls in a slow breath. "No I don't, really. I'd rather go to bed if you don't mind." She moves to walk past him again and this time Fenris growls in aggravation and yanks her back against the wall beside the door. It is not rough but firm enough to surprise her as her back thumps against the wall.

"Stop," he breathes harshly. "Stop running, Hawke." His words are hot on her cheeks and she blinks up at him in surprise, her hands already moving to push him from her. But she cannot stop the trembling in her arms or the shaky expel of breath when his eyes bore into hers. And she stills in her effort to shove him when the unexpected hitch in her throat reminds her that tears are on their way. She pulls in a sharp breath and licks her lips. She can't stop the painful throbbing in her chest. Slowly, shaking, she opens her mouth to speak. "Please…"

Fenris finds he cannot take his eyes from her, and his grip on her shoulders against the wall tightens reflexively. She has never looked so broken before. And he thinks even he cannot bring her back now.

She furrows her brow as the tears begin to dot her eyes. "Please…let me go." She doesn't even know who she's begging anymore. "I just…please, just let me go." Hawke pulls a hand from his chest and wipes at her eyes, squeezing them shut to the hot tears. Her voice quakes with shame Fenris never expected from her and he releases his hold of her unconsciously. She hiccups once, pulls both hands to her face and slides down the wall, trembling. "I don't want to be this person anymore."

Her voice is something out of a dream, or a nightmare. And Fenris can do nothing but watch as she hides her face beneath her hands and cries into her palms. "I don't want to wake up being this way anymore. I don't want…I never wanted any of it."

Fenris's brows knit together in confusion.

The air is thick in the silver room and nothing has prepared him for the image of Hawke kneeling beneath him.

She wipes her cheek roughly, her hand wet with the tears and she sobs louder. "I never wanted this fucking magic," she spat and Fenris stares at her wide-eyed.

"But I got it anyway. And it killed her." She chuckles darkly and Fenris is on his knees before he realizes his hands are moving to her face.

"No," he urges softly, his hands cupping her cheeks to lift her pained face to his. "No, no, no. You did everything you could. _Yours_ is not the magic at blame. It was Quentin who-"

She lets out a harsh bark of a laugh and Fenris recoils slightly. "Don't you get it?" She shakes her head, auburn strands of hair plastered to her cheeks with the wetness of her tears. She brushes at them haphazardly, her sobs still raking her throat achingly. "You were right, Fenris. I do stink of self-righteousness. It's this stupid fucking curse of magic. This rank and foul corruption in my heart." She moves a hand to grip at her chest, the leather of her tunic bunching in her fingers. "I feel it, Fenris. And it hurts more than her loss. It hurts because I know. I _know_." Her eyes search his frantically and she reaches for him, her hands grabbing at his tunic and pulling him closer toward her so that they shared the same air. He reaches out a hand to brace himself against the wall at her back. Her fingers are trembling against his chest and nothing has ever felt so simple before. The words are easy and ready on her tongue, the tangle of hate and regret clawing at her chest beneath the struggle of her own heartbeat. It is so easy. And it is true. And it is final.

"I know I'm just like him."

Fenris moves his hands into her hair, his lips on her temple. He closes his eyes and breathes in her scent. "You are _nothing_ like him."

She honestly tries to believe him. But it's a long way down. And it is anything but over.

* * *

She was an idiot, she thinks, not to bring Anders on this one. In fighting Sister Petrice' incensed mob, they had originally tried to knock out and evade as many citizens without lethal force. It had proven almost impossible however, and it was when Merril cried out sharply as one of the mob men ran a dagger along the length of her thigh, his body falling dead shortly after, that turned the battle into 'kill or be killed'.

When they had stood in victory, panting with aching muscles, Hawke turned to find Merril sagging against a stack of crates, one hand pressing a cloth to the bleeding wound along her leg. Hawke swallowed thickly and caught Merril's gaze. The elf turned her face from Hawke and tried to stand, only to fall back against the crates. Aveline reached out and caught the elf's weight, pulling her other arm around her shoulders to hold her up.

"Hawke, can you heal her?" Aveline's voice was steady and expectant. She looked at her with heavy eyes. Merril was looking away.

Hawke didn't think it would hurt so much to see their faces like this. To not see their faces when she needed to. To know that faces were only masks and that they had removed theirs for her. She felt like a coward.

Fenris stood silently watching.

Hawke glanced at him, her mouth moving to form words she could never understand herself and for the first time, everything felt so pointless. Nothing she did mattered. Nothing she did changed anything.

She looked down at her hands, at the blood caking and drying in the creases of her palms and she had never felt so dirty before.

"Hawke."

His voice is held tight with a string that stitches its sounds together like the first song you ever heard. Her name on his tongue isn't made of letters or syllables but tastes like gold dust and breathes like the wild dark. And when he says it, it means more than just a name.

He knows he may not be enough.

But she gulps down that jagged slice of shame and slowly, hesitantly, moves toward Merril. Her hands are raised and shaking, but the magic that flows through her fingertips is familiar and hauntingly comforting. Beneath her touch, the skin on Merril's thigh begins to softly stitch together. When the spell is finished, she looks up and finds Merril staring at her. Her eyes are wet with tears and her brow is furrowed in pain, but it is not the pain of a wounded leg. Before Hawke can even open her mouth to speak, Merril's arms are around her neck and her face is buried in the mage's shoulder. Hawke grips her back fiercely, her eyes landing on Fenris.

And he thinks he may not need to be enough.

* * *

Fenris sees the flicker of the old Hawke when she reads over the note Isabela left as they fled the foundry. There is a flash of betrayal and anger before the sudden and almost-missed look of longing. But it is gone before she even finishes the note and when she turns to look at the rest of them, Fenris knows he could have done more than hold her and sit with her in the dark of the library.

"She's left." Hawke's voice is clipped. "And she's taken the Relic."

He could have done so much more.

* * *

It was instinctual, how her hand gripped her staff, how she reached for the power without thinking. It must be wrong, she kept telling herself. But then she heard Aveline's yell over the roaring battle and Varric's cries for her to get off her ass. Flames burned around her. She swept her hands toward the oncoming Qunari and flames burned before her.

And when the skirmish had ended and Aveline leaned over, hands on her knees as she panted with exhaustion, pleading "Hawke, I need your help" between gasps for air, the beginnings of a flame finally began to burn within her.

* * *

"Let us move then. Quickly." With Meredith's order, the templars headed up the stone steps toward the Viscount's Keep, Orsino in their ranks. Fenris, Aveline and Varric followed.

Carver looked to Hawke one last time before turning himself.

She didn't even realize she had moved until Carver snapped sharply at her, "What? There is no time, sister."

Hawke looked down and saw she was gripping his elbow, the material of his sleeves bunched in her fingers and she simply held him there on the cold stone steps.

"Carver, I…" She couldn't speak. Couldn't look at him. There was something of Mother in his eyes.

Carver pulled his arm from her grip. "You know, you're in enough shit as it is. I can't believe you used magic in front of Meredith." He narrowed his eyes at her hung head, his arms crossed before the metal of his armored chest plate. "And now I'm sure there's to be an investigation into why I had not brought this information forward. You just signed our executions papers, sister. I guess it's 'welcome to the family' huh?"

Hawke brought her gaze up to Carver. He stopped talking.

She raised a hand to touch his elbow once more, and it was so meek and so feeble that Carver had trouble reconciling this woman before him with the head-strong sister he had always known. His arms uncrossed as he eyed her silently.

"Will you just…" Her voice was so soft, so light amidst the cold and hard stone around them. Her vision flooded with tears and the break in her voice stilled Carver's heartbeat.

She looked so small to him then, so defeated. He swallowed thickly and watched as she pulled a hand to her mouth. "Please, will you just…just tell me I'm not a mistake." Her face crumbled and her quivering hand moved up to cover her eyes. This was not who she wanted to be anymore.

And then there was warmth and steadiness as Carver's arms moved around her shoulders and one of his hands held her head to his chest. Even the cool feel of his armor was welcoming to her wet cheeks. She sobbed into his chest and heard his heartbeat through the chainmail. It sounded just like hers.

"Maker, you're so frustrating," Carver sighed into her hair, and he could swear he felt her smile into his chest.

* * *

Hawke took a deep, steadying breath and turned to her companions. Behind her, the Arishok was readying his armor and weapons. The crowds around them buzzed with whispers and fear.

Hawke's eyes met Fenris. "If I go down I need you to –"

"You will not." There was nothing but firm conviction in his voice. It was more than she felt.

Hawke sighed. "Fenris, if I go down –"

"They will not have you." He had stepped closer, his breath fanning her cheeks, his hand bracing her neck. It was frighteningly possessive and yet comforting. Hawke shuddered at his touch. " _I_ will not let them have you." His other hand came up to her neck and he cradled her head in his hold, his eyes soft and full of something achingly close to fear. But his touch is sure and she understands this is the only way he knows how to keep her safe. "You are _nothing_ like him."

Hawke closed her eyes and touched her forehead to his. Breathed in. Breathed out. She heard the sweet song of lyrium singing to her through the haze of rising magic. Her hands burned in remembrance.

She opened her eyes.

Somehow, she knew he was right.

She knew.

She knew she was nothing like him.

* * *

There is heavy silence in the air and Hawke feels her heartbeat in her ears, welcomes the rush of blood through her limbs. There is liberation in this moment. There is freedom and fear and so much unknown that Hawke wonders how she will ever make it through alive. But then she opens her eyes and looks past the fallen body of the Arishok, her hands still gripping tightly her worn staff and finally, it feels like _her_ magic, and not some demon's plaything. At the bottom of the carpeted stairs, Fenris is waiting for her. There is liberation in this moment.


	4. Blood-Soaked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We pay for everything in this life, for good or ill. We pay for it all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anything with a * after the line is taken directly from in game and is property of Dragon Age, Bioware and EA Games.

The Wild Dark

Chapter Four: Blood-Soaked

_"We pay for everything in this life, for good or ill. We pay for it all."_

* * *

They say Champion as though it means something. She hears the word, hears the call, and yet still cannot connect the name with the person. She is Hawke. She is something dearer to those who know her well. She is something harrowing to those who know her little. But she has never been this "Champion". She has no idea how to be this hero. She has no idea how to be anything worthy to anyone.

* * *

"So, no stomach for dictating?" Isabela asked impishly as she flopped herself into the vacant viscount's ruling chair, her legs coming up to swing over one arm while she rested her elbows back against the other.

Hawke eyed her with a smirk before turning back to look around the room. All the nobles had left at her bidding. She felt lost underneath the high-vaulted ceiling. Deep burgundy banners hung from the ramparts of the empty, hollow chamber. The stone was cold. The high windows above the throne streamed deadening light into the space.

The stain of the Arishok still reddened the carpet at her feet.

"No stomach for politics", Hawke answered. She paused before turning back to eye the lounging pirate. "What are you doing here, Isabela?" She couldn't help the slight apprehension in her voice.

"Oh you know, keeping an eye on my favorite girl," she said devilishly, following her remark with a wink. "Don't know why you came back here though if you don't plan on taking up the title of viscount. All those stuffy nobles." She shifted uncomfortably.

"No, Isabela." Hawke brought back the pirate's attention with her heavy tone. "What are you doing here?" she repeated.

Isabela caught Hawke's meaning and brought her palm up to cradle her chin as she leaned over one arm of the throne. "What can I say? You inspire momentary bouts of morality in me, Hawke." Her smile faded as she watched Hawke standing in the middle of the viscount's throne room, staring at her, unmoving.

There was something ethereal about the silhouette of light lining Hawke, something halting in her amber eyes and steady grasp of her staff. Her presence filled the barren chamber. Her silent stare was inviting and dangerous all at once.

Blinking at the mage, Isabela sat up straighter, her eyes darting to the floor momentarily. "You called me."

Hawke cocked her head in question.

Isabela sighed resignedly. "I heard your voice in the wind, saw your face in the waves. You have always called me back."

There was something in Hawke that ached at the sentiment.

Isabela smirked and pushed herself up from her seat, sauntering past where Hawke stood. "If you should ever need me Hawke, I will always come back for you."

Hawke watched her leave.

* * *

In his dreams he watches the battle between Hawke and the Arishok. He sees the heavy swing of the Qunari's blade as it swipes dangerously close to Hawke's cheek, her own body jolting back sharply at the near miss, stumbling in surprise, her right palm coming forward to send freezing particles to the rampaging giant's frame in hopes of slowing him down. It is just enough to halt him for mere moments, enough for Hawke to retreat back several paces and guzzle down a lyrium potion in frenzied haste. Her magic is rejuvenated instantly, that sweet song of lyrium flooding her veins momentarily and she has only a moment to blink back into consciousness before the Arishok is running toward her once more. She swings her staff forward quickly, blocking a heavy swing, her elbows almost buckling with the strength behind the blow, and she must twist the bladed end of her staff quickly up toward the Arishok's arm to push him back, because her magic is faltering and her body is struggling under the weight of fatigue and endlessly replenishing of spellpower. She realizes now how much she had relied on magic before. How mush she had taken for granted. She sweeps a trail of flame toward her opponent in a hopeless attempt of weakening him.

Since she had rejected her power since the death of her mother, she had been sorely out of practice. That sweet song that used to sing to her in her dreams had become distant and waning. The notes were barely discernable now between the clashing strikes of Qunari metal on human staffwork. She was trying desperately to reclaim that essence, that ease of magic that she had lived with for years, that her hands had known intimately without instruction.

She had given up on the power. And it would be the death of her.

She wasn't quick enough to catch the thundering Qunari's violent swing toward her chest. There was barely time to jump back and out of reach, but it wasn't enough. The sharp, serrated edge of the blade swipes clean across Hawke's stomach, splitting the tender flesh there and tearing a sharp scream from the mage as she stumbles back, her body racked with pain and adrenaline and the heavy, tearing pull of the Fade. Before she can even reach a hand to her bleeding stomach she feels the crack of the Arishok's fist across her jaw that sends her spinning to the floor.

There is a dark whisper swirling around her. There is a gathering of shadow. It is not enough. She is not enough.

The cut is quick and to the bone. Her body slumps forward, dead.

Fenris wakes screaming, sweating with a terror he hadn't thought possible.

* * *

"You'll pull it again if you go out tonight." Anders' tender grip on Hawke's knee stilled as he looked up at her from his kneel before her. She sat at the edge of her bed, her hands holding her weight as she leaned back slightly, looking at the bandages Anders was wrapping around her swollen knee. The orange glow of candles landed comfortingly along the planes of his face and his soft yet disapproving smile only partially made her feel guilty for requesting a house call so late at night.

"But I'm good to go? As long as I watch it. I mean, you did your hocus pocus right?" Hawke asked hopefully while waving her hands around her knee and narrowing her features into a hilariously bad imitation of a focused, magic-wielding Anders.

He couldn't help the laugh that left his lips, but he was quick to pull his face back to disapproving, one hand pulled up to cover his smile.

Hawke beamed back and pulled her auburn hair over one shoulder to begin braiding it, a sign to the healer that her mind had already been set. "More raiders have popped up in Hightown at night since the recent 'spring cleaning' in government."

"Still," Anders continued, fastening the last of the bandage around her smooth calf, "You damaged it pretty good in that fight with the Arishok, and even with my magic these things take some time. If I hadn't…" Anders let his touch linger on her knee momentarily, gulping back the unexpected break in his voice.

Hawke's fingers stilled in her hair and she blinked at him.

"You could have bled out," he finished lowly, his gaze fixed to her damaged knee.

Hawke's hand on his shoulder. "But I didn't." Her auburn curls spilling over her arm.

Anders eyes are on hers, his brow quaking, the ever-present itching of Justice in the back of his skull and he has never wanted to be without the spirit more than in this moment. To be here in the privacy of this moment with Hawke. "You almost…"

"But you were there." Her voice is steady, her gaze sure, as though it has always been thus with him. Her hand has found its way from his shoulder to his cheek and she can't help but rub the pad of her thumb along his stubble-lined jaw. "You were there." She nods once, reassuringly, and she thinks of how many times she has felt the searing pain of some injury and instinctually looked for those hazel eyes. There has always been something calming and soothing to his gaze and his hands. There has always been a steady giving waiting for her when she looked for him. He has always been there. He has always been there waiting.

Hawke's breath catches slightly at the way Ander's fingers graze the smooth underside of her knee and she is suddenly aware of his breath, hot along her palm. She pulls her hand back, swallowing thickly, not sure how Anders can make her feel so comfortable and yet out of her skin entirely at the same time. But one of his hands has come up to grasp at her retreating one.

"I don't know what I would have done."

And when he says it, without needing to say it, the memory of her near-death is vibrant and close and tastes like gravel along her tongue. She wants to shrink in on herself. She closes her eyes and tries to think of that green gaze. Lyrium-laced heat along her skin. She swallows down that cut of recollection, and reaches, unknowingly, toward that song of lyrium singing to her in the deep. That remembrance of magic that is hers, that reassurance of control. "We all do what we must," she breathes lowly.

Hawke feels the sudden absence of Anders' once-close warmth and opens her eyes in time to see him pull his hand from hers and stand before her. There is a sharp heat to his gaze that she has never seen before. She licks her lips unconsciously and feels the sudden, unexplainable need to push her robe back to cover her once-bare legs.

"Yes." For once she thinks this is Anders' voice, not some spirit-tinged presence. It is searing and sudden and dangerously unfamiliar. "We all do what we must."

It takes all of him to walk away. It takes all of him to ignore the sound of her breathing, the scent of her so close, to know his hands were on her warm skin only seconds ago. He clenches his fists at his side and walks from the room with the last of his resolve.

* * *

"Cheer up, Elf." Varric nudges Fenris with his elbow before bringing his mug of mead to his mouth. "Now that the Qunari compound's freed up you could probably put in a request for new brooding grounds. I know your depressing mansion's just jam packed with gloomy sulk."

Fenris raised a brow at the stout dwarf beside him, "You sure you do not need the extra room for your extravagant tales and incessant gossip.?" Fenris eyed the crowd in the Hanged Man as he took a sip from his own glass of wine. "Are they not becoming burdensome, dwarf?"

Varric's laugh bubbles up from his chest. "Well, I am running out of room for Rivaini's stories. Maker knows how many lies that woman has told." But Varric says it with a laugh, and there is no malice or suspicion in his voice.

Fenris cannot help the way his eyes land warily on the pirate and her easy conversation with Hawke on the other side of the bar. "Hmm, that _is_ troublesome."

Varric notices the elf's heavy stare and rolls his eyes. "Oh come on, I'm only playing. Rivaini has shown her loyalty to Hawke. Wouldn't be here otherwise."

"Has she?" Fenris says a little too harshly, leaning forward, his elbows coming up to lean against the bartop.

Varric sighs. "She came back."

Fenris scoffs. "That does not necessitate Hawke's quick acceptance of her return."

" _You_ came back."

Fenris is silent.

There is only the laughter of others around the pair and the slow steady sips of their respective drinks.

"I…did not 'come back'." Fenris finally speaks and it sounds as weak aloud as it does in his head.

Varric simply nods and decides to let someone else do the speaking for once.

Fenris runs a hand through his hair roughly. "It is not so plain as that. I left her, if I even had her in the first place. And it is not something fixed with a simple 'return'. I no more deserve her attention than the flies in this bar."

Varric chokes on his mead. "Wow, Broody, you certainly have the self-pity down." His grin is broad and casual and completely disregarding of Fenris' somber confession. "You're so full of nug shit."

The elf merely scowls in his direction.

"I'd give everything of House Tethras to have someone look at me the way she looks at you." Varric pulled a finger to point at Fenris. "And that doesn't leave this conversation, or you'll hear from Bianca."

Fenris only looks at his drink, swirling the red wine around his glass. The voices around him are hollow and foreign. There is nothing here that reminds him of home. He aches at night for some kind of anchor. He feels like drowning.

Varric takes a large gulp from his mead and looks at Fenris. "When you can each look at each other, and _see_ each other, and tell each other 'I'm ready' and mean it enough not to walk away when things get rough, when you realize that time stops for no one and we all die wanting, when you can tell someone you love them and it has nothing to do with you and what you need from them, when you can learn to change _with_ a person and not _because of_ or in _spite of_ them, when you get over the 'I' in 'I love you', well…" Varric lays his empty mug on the bar top, placing a sovereign next to it for his tab as he slaps the warrior's sunken shoulder.

Fenris blinks through the light fog of his wine. It is still sweet on his lips and he can hear Hawke's laugh cut through the clinking of glasses and boisterous yelling. It is clear and sure and stunted with an unexpected snort that brings an unconscious smirk to his lips. "Well?"

Wiping his mouth with one hand, Varric pushed off his stool with the other. "I've never been one to spoil an ending, Elf."

Fenris glances up in time to see Hawke look back at him across the bar. It is momentary. It is soft and fleeting and ending with the slight upward turn of her lips. It is enough for him to realize he has already drowned.

* * *

"Ugh, it's sticky and wet and _all over me_!" Isabela moans in disgust as she tries in vain to wipe the corrupted spider guts off her tunic and arms. She spits into the dirt. Merrill is behind her holding her sides with laughter.

"Oh come now, Isabela," Hawke smirks, leaning on her staff, "that sounds like the usual end to your evening."

Isabela sputters.

Fenris smiles at the old Hawke peeking through.

* * *

He hears word of a sister. His first thought is of Hawke. He needs her there with him. He needs her there.

* * *

It is largely anti-climatic. The snapping of Danarius' neck in Fenris' sure fingers. There is no prolonged pleading for life, no frantic grasping at the elf's hand on his throat, no cosmic understanding or closure passing through his eyes. It is a loud and painful crack. Then the thud of the body hitting the wood floor. There is the slight burn of lyrium along his skin. There is no finality. There is no clarity. There is no end.

This hate burns still.

There is no end.

* * *

His sister lives because of Hawke. He still is not sure why she pleaded with him for Varania's life. It was all he could think of to end whatever remnants were left of his old life. He wanted nothing that breathed of Minrathous. Nothing that smelled of Tevinter magic. Nothing that knew his name from before. Nothing. He wanted nothing to remain.

The way she said "sister".

In one moment, gone.

Varania ran.

And there was nothing left.

Dust and shade and burning magic. Fenris' hot breath as he gulped down sharp pangs of half-memory and glaring truth. Varric's shuffle of feet. The loud sheathing of Aveline's heavy sword in the silent room. Hawke's voice behind him.

"Fenris…"

"I want a funeral." His voice is steady and without hesitation, but it is meaningless and futile in the aftermath of the fight. Danarius lays still at his feet, the slow pool of blood creeping toward Fenris' toes. The sharp, metallic smell of blood lingers in the air. Dust and shade and burning magic.

Hawke takes a slow step forward, glances at the dead magister with eyes peeled toward the ceiling. "A funeral?" Her voice is pierced with the pain of a cracked rib. She forgets it. She is only looking at Fenris, his hands hanging limp at his sides, his head tilted to the light craning in from the high windows. She wants to tell him.

There is nothing left.

"I want a funeral for Leto." He says it just as Hawke's hand tentatively touches his. She has a moment to awkwardly link fingers with his before he is moving away and toward the door.

Hawke swallows and nods silently. She closes her eyes and sees the magic still swirling bright and heavy and painful in the still room.

There was everything left.

* * *

The pyre is aflame just feet before him, the flames hot and spitting embers into the cold, dark air. Overhead there are stars. But Fenris has no mind to pay them. His eyes are fixed to the fire. The wooden pyre is empty. There is no body to lay to rest.

It makes him grip harshly at his chest where he knows his heart still beats wildly beneath his touch. It still beats. He needs to remember that.

Somewhere Merrill is singing. And Fenris doesn't even have the strength to sneer at her.

He is surprised to see Carver with his hand over Hawke's shoulder. There are things in this world he still wonders at.

They are all strangers at this funeral. Not one of them, not Varric, not Aveline, or Merrill, or Isabela or for some ridiculous reason Anders (though he suspects the mage is there for Hawke and not him, or some sadistic pleasure in imagining it truly is Fenris' funeral) are here because they knew Leto.

Not Hawke. And certainly not Fenris.

The flames snap back at him, so close, the heat trailing sweat down his brow.

It would be so easy to finish it. To walk forward and let it take him.

Hawke's tender touch is on his arm, her hand sliding down to grasp shakily at his hand and the fist he has to his heart clenches tighter around his tunic.

It still beats. Hawke touches him and it still beats. He needs to remember that.

* * *

He still cannot leave the mansion. It is part spite and part fear. In some way he can still hold something of Danarius'. This decrepit, failing, dying home. All that he has left of a dead master. He can still hear the chains rattling in the empty hallways at night.

The others visit him now and then. Aveline has already warned that she can't keep the seneschal's attention away for much longer. Varric has offered to put him up in the Hanged Man until he finds somewhere else. But Fenris has never known how to move forward. It is simply something that he has found the will to stay here in Kirkwall at all. He is not rolling back. He is not falling behind. And that is something.

One day he will know what it is to take a step forward, what it is to see the horizon as something other than the ending of day, something other than unreachable.

For now, he has found a place to stand. He will grasp hold of that with all he has. First things first. It will be a slow process. But he knows Hawke has the patience. He knows he has someone waiting for when he will be able to say "I'm ready" and mean it enough not to walk away when things get rough. He knows he has someone to change with.

He has everything left.

* * *

"Hawke you can't possibly-"

"I'm not exactly in a position to argue, Anders."

"But why can't we just tell Meredith we couldn't find the three mages, or better yet, tell her we found them dead. And the trail stops." He doesn't know why he's pleading with her.

"And what if one of them truly is dangerous? What if one of them hurts someone because we turned a blind eye?" Hawke pinches the bridge of her nose.

"They shouldn't be hunted down simply because they're mages."

"I'm not _hunting_ them down."

"You assume they are dangerous simply because Meredith claims they are."

"I assume danger from anyone, mage or not. It's the only reason I'm still breathing, Anders." She wraps her arms around herself for a moment and thinks _Mother_ and _Bethany_ and _Marethari_ and dozens of names she has learned and lost over the years. Magic is a drop in the ocean that is death, nipping at their ankles as they flee the ever-rolling waves. She has learned to assume danger from anyone.

Anders softens. "I know you want to give them a chance. But if it had been three escapees from the Guardsmen's prison, do you think they would have called you in for this favor? The Champion of Kirkwall?"

Hawke stares silently at him.

"Asking you to capture these mages is a strategic move on Meredith's part. She's using you as a symbol to scare any rebellious magic. Saying she has you in her pocket."

"I am in no one's pocket, Anders, and you know that," Hawke nearly spits.

"But that is how Meredith will play it." Anders will not let her hurt tinge his resolve. "Just let them go. Please."

Hawke is shaking her head. She cannot look at him as she says "I can't."

Anders grinds his teeth.

Hawke sighs, and there is exhaustion bone-deep and heavy in her voice. "If I let them go…and if they hurt someone…" She knew this conversation would never get anywhere. "I won't have that blood on my hands. I won't have _any more_ blood on my hands."

Anders is still. "Sometimes that is the price of freedom."

Something in the way he says it scares Hawke into looking at him. She opens her mouth to speak, but there is nothing to say that will change either of their minds. She knew this even before Anders stopped her to speak on their way from the Gallows. She has always known that there would be no words between them that could change anything.

She walks away instead. She cannot look at him with dying words lodged in her throat.

* * *

"There can be no turning back.*"

It happens moments after Hawke felt the first wave of unnatural magic invade her mind. There was a shifting, a churning of coarse and harsh magic through the Fade that came rushing in waves through Hawke. It was sudden and dizzying and before she could even filter through the tangled knots of Fade bunching around her mind there was an explosion behind them and the thunderous boom of tearing the Veil that comes with so much death and enchantment. The Chantry was no more. The ground shook as though crying. The tainted smell of blood spilled with spells flooded her nostrils. She blinked through the fog at Anders. She knew he felt that horrible tearing and rending. She knew he too heard the demons laughing behind the Veil.

* * *

She was determined not to cry for him. Not to cry for this horrible, blinded murderer.

"This is the justice all mages have awaited.*"

Hawke wonders if he believes it when he says it. Anders sits with his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging limply before him. There is everything of resignation in the way his shoulders slump, everything that screams finality and acceptance and unapology in the way he looks at her. It makes her want to shake him.

" _I_ did not ask for this!" Her voice is shrill and pleading and heated all at once. Her vision blurs with hot tears and she throws a finger to point at the destruction past the stairs at their feet. " _I_ did not want this! You can't speak for all of us, Anders."

"Then neither can you."

She is silenced, but her anger has hardly waned.

"The people fear what we can do, but to use that fear to bludgeon us into submission is wrong. And they do it with our blessing.*"

"But this…" She can barely think past the fuzzy tingling of Fade creeping into her mind, barely think past the anger and the panic and the fear.

Fear.

That's where all of this started.

She sucked her quivering lip in and stared down at the man before her. Her grip on her dagger was shaking. She resolved not to be afraid anymore.

His eyes found her hand on her sheathed dagger. "We all do what we must."

Hawke slapped him. Harsh and stinging and bright red across his cheek. His head whipped with the force of it.

"Don't you dare," she growled, her voice tinged with heavy tears and anger deep-seated in a place she didn't think she could feel anymore. Her indignation was sharp and tasted like copper in her mouth, a finger coming up to shove itself in his chest as she slung betrayal back in his face. "Don't you dare use my words for something like this…something so…so…" She pulled back, wiped a hand across her wet nose, sniffed back her fury and ground her teeth in helplessness. "So bloody."

It was always about the blood.

Anders had not moved his head, had not reached to cradle his burning cheek in his palm. He sat there still. He sat there looking at her with eyes that knew what would come next.

Hawke scoffed, her voice shaking with rage, "Don't you dare turn this into something noble or good or _necessary_! There is never anything _necessary_ about the murder of innocents. How could you? How could you?" she ended on a scream.

Anders' brow furrowed at the quake in her shout. He needed her to be the strong one in this. He couldn't do it much longer.

She didn't care that she was crying now, didn't care that Anders seemed to be close himself. "How could you?" And she knows she's being selfish here because it isn't about innocents anymore. She'll admit to that. She knows it's not altruistic anymore because in the end it comes down to this:

How could you? How could you make me kill you?

They both know it's what comes next.

Anders sighs in a way that says he's always known it'd be her. It makes her shudder, makes her shut her eyes to the hot tears against her lids.

He folds his hands together, looks past Hawke at where her other companions are standing. Looks past the dead bodies of templar and mage lining the dirt floor before them. Looks past the deep reddening of the sky above the crumbling Chantry. Looks past the haze of bleeding justice-turned-vengeance tainting the sun as it sinks lower into the coming night. "We pay for everything in this life, for good or ill. We pay for it all."

Hawke opens her eyes at this last exhale. She wraps her hands around his face and presses her lips to his temple, kisses him hard, presses her tear-stained cheeks into his skin and feels him wrap his hands loosely around her wrists. She chokes on a sob, her lips pressing against his warm skin once more, her whisper of "I'm sorry" ghosting across his face before she pulls her dagger from its sheath.

His answering "I'm not" is splashed with blood, his last breath tinged with gratitude. She was the last thing he got to feel before the Fade overwhelmed him.

Hawke stood with her face in her hands, her body racked with sobs.

Her dagger clanked to the floor, blood-soaked.

* * *

"It never changes."

Fenris glances at Hawke out of the corner of his eye as they make their way through the cold stone of the Gallows. She has barely spoken since they began their steady, resistant wage of battle against the templars.

"Things never change, do they?" she repeats softly.

Fenris blinked at her. "Nothing is further from the truth."

Hawke stopped and instinctually grasped for the comfort of her staff in her hand. Ahead, Isabela checked the walkway for traps and Aveline stood watch at their flank. Hawke pushed an auburn curl behind her ear and waited for him to say something. Say anything.

Fenris stopped as well, staring at her in a way he has never before. As though he is seeing her for the first time. "I am risking my life in defense of a mage. As my choice. Does that not speak volumes as to how people may change?" Even in the cold stone of the Gallows, his voice is warm and steady.

Hawke narrows her eyes slightly, "I know you still…" She sniffs, folds her arms over her chest. "You still don't think mages should be outside the Circle." It is said as a statement but even she will admit it has become more of a question.

Fenris rolls the words over his tongue before speaking, watching her. "I do. And you have doubts yourself."

Hawke opens her mouth to protest but stops. She cannot lie to him. Not now. Not after everything.

His eyes soften, his hands coming up to rub along her arms. "I did not say I was risking my life in defense of _mages_ ," he began slowly.

Hawke eyed him in question, her breath labored and burdened with the recent fighting. She wanted to be done with fighting.

"I said _a_ mage. One. You." The way his voice rolls over her like grated smoke, the way she finds her face crumbling into pain before his sure gaze.

Before she can cover her face with her hand, Fenris has raised her chin with his own hand, his fingers running tenderly along her jaw. "I do not pretend to have abandoned my hate and suspicion of magic so swiftly and so entirely. Magic has spoiled many things in my life. But it has not spoiled you. And you are _not_ magic. It is a part of you. It is not the whole of you. The whole of you is something more. And that I would risk more than life and limb to keep safe."

Her lips are trembling without realizing, her eyes wet as they blink away the doubt, and she finds herself reaching for him with shaking fingers. She sees that wild dark reflecting in the green of his eyes. Her palms press against his cheeks, her fingertips grazing his skin. She kisses him with everything they have left.

His arms are wrapped tightly around her frame and she sighs into his mouth, her smile pressed into his lips and she can't help the sudden choke of a sob or gurgle of a laugh that breaks free when he breathes her name softly into her mouth.

"Rahna." Her _name_.

She nods.

"I'm ready."


	5. Fingers Laced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is Fenris. This is Fenris ready to be in it. Knee-deep and muddied and inescapable."

The Wild Dark

Chapter Five: Fingers Laced

_"This is Fenris. This is Fenris ready to be in it. Knee-deep and muddied and inescapable."_

* * *

Hawke watches as Fenris swings his sword to cut more flesh on their path to Meredith. It is swift and sure. Without hesitation. Without mercy. Blood splashes across his cheeks and he does not seem to notice. Hawke watches as his lyrium-lined form slinks through templars with an ease that scares her in its efficiency, in its ruthlessness. The lines of magic along his body thrum in recognition of the age old song. It sings to her in notes she can only discern through touch, her own palms burning with magic, searing hot and fatal across a man's chest, burning with an inkling of the ethereal. That instant, breathtaking, otherworldly moment of disconnect, that precipice at the edge of consciousness, that itch of un-reality burrowing in the back of your skull.

Hawke's magic weaves illusion through the minds of men and Fenris' sword cuts stark streaks of blinding pain, both cutting swaths through mind and body, jarring men into near-death moments of wakefulness. Epiphany. The be all and end all that comes with death's pronouncement. It is swift and shattering and cold beyond recognition. Each of them, mage, templar, slave, has blood that cannot be washed, live truths that cannot be spoken, dream in white and bathe in grey. They each of them live brief and dirty lives. They each of them strive for more. They each of them live as though it matters. As though it all matters. Each breath. Each word. Each touch.

Hawke feels it all. She feels every life she takes in this mad, useless struggle. She cries for each of them.

* * *

"Alright Varric, my lovely, foresight-challenged dwarf. Pay up."

Hawke glances back at Isabela's statement as the pirate stretches out a palm toward the dwarf. They all stop at the foot of the steps leading to the mage quarters, watching as Orsino showers fireballs upon charging templars to let several mages escape into the hold of the old slave prison, now housing hundreds of half terrified, half furious mages. Hawke raises a brow at the comment and Varric answers begrudgingly, flipping two gold coins to Isabela, "Damn Orsino. Figured the elf wouldn't last 'til you arrived."

Hawke wants to look offended but can't help the laugh that erupts from her as they run up the stone steps.

* * *

"Are you really going to fight your own brother?" Carver is just standing there, his sword sheathed, his place behind Meredith. The cold silver of his templar armor blends into the muted grey stone around them until Hawke cannot differentiate the two. Until she can see only a prison.

She clenches her fists tightly, her nails biting half moons into her own flesh. "You ask as though I have a choice," she nearly spits. It is easy to look at Carver and be furious. Too easy. What has magic done to this family, she thinks. And then she curses the thought as quickly as it came, shakes away the idea because no, it was never magic. Magic was never what changed people. The change had always been in there somewhere, working, sleeping, sometimes dying. But the change was always there. This family was its own doing. This family was her doing. She softens at the thought.

Carver chuckles humorlessly, and it is not the reaction she expects. "We both know no one has ever made you do anything you didn't want to."

Hawke swallows her words.

"Serah Hawke," and here Meredith's voice and face is inclined to Carver, "you will follow your orders and fulfill your duty as a templar. Or would you like to share your sister's fate?"

There is a flicker of something sharp and bright in Meredith's eye. But Hawke cannot identify it and she is too focused on Carver at this moment to care. She feels Fenris' solid strength and warmth behind her.

Meredith does not even give Carver the choice of an answer, instead she warns Orsino to prepare and turns down the steps, her templar order following. Merrill, Aveline, Varric and Isabela help Orsino pull the wounded into the keep. Hawke remains in the blood-stained courtyard watching Carver as he stares at her. Fenris' presence has not moved.

Hawke finally finds the words that must be said, whether he likes them or not, whether she believes them or not. "I don't want to be the last of this family." Her voice is coarse and forced, her grip never loosening on her staff.

Carver scoffs, and that sounds more familiar to Hawke. "You speak as though it is already assumed I couldn't defeat you."

Hawke forces the nonchalant shadow of a smirk to her lips. "You never could before."

Carver narrows his eyes in annoyance, crossing his arms over his chest. "Your arrogance will be your downfall, sister."

Hawke feels the slight thrum of magic lighting up the lyrium along Fenris' form behind her. But she has learned how to understand her brother, even if he has yet to understand her. She holds a palm before the elf in a motion of calm.

Carver watches and cannot help the slight anger that flares in him at the sight. "And what then? Your new slave here challenges me?"

Fenris speaks before she has an answer. "How can you still, in all this time, know your sister so little?"

Hawke only blinks at her brother, and she sees that he cannot know everything that has happened between her and Fenris. She sees that he may never know what she went through after Mother's death. She sees that he would never understand if she told him she sees Bethany beyond the Veil at night, when she is powerless against the pull of the Fade in her dreams. She sees that there are parts of her that he will never know. The thought made her heart clench harshly inside her chest. This was family. This was blood. And wasn't that what this war was all about? It was always about the blood. She's been trying so desperately to prove that blood is too important to spill senselessly. It is too important to throw away because they are each too stubborn for words that should be easy.

"I will never know my sister, if she will not let me." There is something weak in Carver's voice then that reminds her of Lothering. Burning homes and blood-curdling screams and feet sore and bloodied but still thumping their freedom into the dirt, still running toward something better, something safer. Carver's voice sounds like a break away. It sounds like how this new life feels. Tired and heavy and helpless. He cannot even look at her.

Fenris is silent behind Hawke, waiting for her reaction. His hand is still resting on the handle of his sword, his body is still tense and waiting and ready. He has learned, as Hawke has, to assume danger from anyone.

Hawke opens her mouth to speak and knows what she must say. Because she is done being too stubborn for words that should be easy. "I will need your help." It was so simple.

Fenris looks at Hawke and wants to hold her to him suddenly, hearing those words she had given him as reason so long ago, as reason for her loyalty to her companions. They had each asked it of her. She has never asked it for herself. But now, with Carver, it may be the beginning of something they should have started long ago.

Carver's head whips up and he locks eyes with his sister. Though her words imply helplessness, there is nothing but strength in her gaze. She is the same head-strong, unmoving, infuriatingly self-righteous sister he has always known. There is nothing lesser about her in her admission. And yet, she asks this of him. She _needs_ him, maybe in ways she doesn't even know yet but she needs him. He is too afraid to admit that he needs her too.

Instead, he studies his steadfast sister, this sister with allies so motivated by their love for her that they take up arms and open themselves up to the slaughter. He glances back to the retreating templars, glances back at his comrades, the fearful, the zealots, the lost, all of them strangers. It is not difficult to see where they lead.

Carver turns from the sight of their backs and walks silently and purposefully into the stone prison behind Hawke and Fenris.

Hawke grabs Fenris' arm, releases a breath she didn't even realize she was holding, and when Fenris looks down at her, her smile is blinding and shaking and whole.

* * *

It is almost enough to make her fall to her knees before the templars, watching as Orsino brings his dagger to his hand. She watches and cannot move as his flesh twists and breaks and reforms and melds with the dead bodies around him. She watches as all traces of humanity bleed out from the rotting flesh and the demon's magic seeps in. She watches its eyes go dark and empty. It is almost enough to make her cry.

Hawke only moves at Merrill's sharp and tear-stained gasp of "No!" The elf's fingers come shakily to her mouth, as though to hold her breath. This is blood she cannot understand shedding.

Hawke pulls her staff before her and finds Fenris already plunging his sword deep into the gut of the rampaging abomination. The monster howls in pain and swings a lumbering arm toward the source of pain. But Fenris has already dashed away and flanked its other side. His eyes are dark and hateful, and Hawke catches the snarling Arcanum curses he spits into the air.

It is almost enough to make her give up. Almost.

Merrill is the first to fire a spell at the once-Orsino.

* * *

Hawke recognizes that glint she saw in Meredith's eye earlier. It carries the same song of the Fade as the lyrium along Fenris' lithe body, but it is not sweet, it is sour and corrupted and black. The song pierces Hawke's consciousness moments before the Knight Commander pulls the pure lyrium blade from its sheath. Templars are already backing away. Cullen is already praying to the Maker. Hawke is already grinning at the challenge. Her magic flares within her. She has missed it sorely. This is her. This fight is her. She whips a cone of flame toward the Knight Commander and laughs into the dark night.

* * *

They make it out of Kirkwall an hour after Meredith falls dead. Hawke stops as they make it to the bottom of the Gallow stairs and everyone stumbles to a halt in confusion, urges to continue on their lips, Isabela's "For the sake of Andraste's dirty knickers, would you _come on_!" nervous and hurried. Hawke turns to Aveline and pulls the woman into a fierce hug. Aveline splutters in surprise, one arm moving to hold Hawke while she asks "What the hell has gotten into you, Hawke?"

Hawke pulls back and looks at Aveline with eyes that remember what the warrior looked like when she lost Wesley. She pulls in a deep breath and puts her hands on the Guard Captain's shoulders. "Go to him."

Aveline opens her mouth in question before she shuts it in silence, her eyes searching Hawke's.

"Donnic is waiting for you. And I cannot ask you to leave him to flee with me."

Aveline smirks at her and quirks an eyebrow. "You wouldn't risk asking me _that_ ," she almost laughs.

Hawke is silent.

Aveline reaches a hand to Hawke's head and pulls her into another embrace, placing her lips on the mage's forehead and closing her eyes as she breathes. "I love you, my sister. Stay safe. Fight hard. Always remember."

"Always." Hawke's answering whisper is soft and lined with tears she will not shed. Her hands come up to grasp Aveline's as they pull away from each other. She strokes the other woman's hand quickly with her thumb and then moves down the stairs, turns without looking back because she knows she will not leave if she does.

Aveline raises her sword in the air and shouts into the clouds and smoke and dark of night, "Champion! Champion! Champion!"

Hawke raises a fist to the air and keeps running. She does not look back.

* * *

Hawke makes it to Gamlen's and finds him nursing a mug of ale, sitting on the floor before the fireplace. He has only a moment to stand and shout in surprise as the group erupts through his threshold. Carver shakes his head and urges their uncle to quiet while Hawke hands him several sovereigns and closes his fist around the money, all the while he's stammering questions at Carver while the former templar waves away his confusion and tries to impart their goodbyes.

Varric is at the door and urging Hawke and Carver to move it.

Hawke grabs Gamlen's chin and pulls his gaze to hers. Carver rolls his eyes but quiets.

"This will not buy you love, or family, or respect. But it is all I can give you before we leave."

"Leave? Leave where? What has happ-"

"I've killed Meredith and freed the Circle mages."

"Well, fuck me."

"And they will hunt us down. They will hunt _you_ down. Because we are family."

Gamlen fires up a scathing comment at the sudden inclusion of himself in this mad frenzy but stops at the way she says "family". It is in the way she holds his closed hand over the gold. It is in the way she stands with Carver, and not apart from him. It is in the way her eyes tell him how much this hurts her, in ways he could never understand.

Gamlen sighs and motions toward the door. "Come on, tell me on the way. I got you into this blasted hellhole of a city. Might as well help get you out."

Hawke did not argue, and as they made their way through Lowtown, Fenris leaned toward her, motioning to Gamlen ahead of them and saying, "Somehow, you always manage to move the lowliest of us to action."

Hawke lifts her gaze to his and cannot help her smile. "What can I say? I have a soft spot for underdogs." She kisses him quickly, pressing her lips to his in momentary warmth and then leaving him to wonder at the loss when she pulls away and jogs ahead to catch Carver. He picks up his pace, a smile tugging at his lips.

* * *

It has been six days since they last walked the streets of Kirkwall. Merrill had made her way to the Dalish immediately to warn them of the coming war. She had found her way back to Hawke's group as they sat around their meager fire and meal somewhere in the woods north of Kirkwall. They were moving north before they would start making a sweep west, into Orlais. Hawke is the first to hand Merrill a bowl of weak soup and scoot over to welcome her onto the fallen tree trunk they used as a bench around the fire.

Varric burns out all his contacts after pulling in favors for gold and supplies when they fled the city. Isabela keeps arguing for the theft of a ship north, nothing huge, just large enough to be manned by the six of them. She begins calling Carver her first mate. He threatens her with violence. She only laughs. She seems to be the only one of them who still can.

Hawke does not know what to do. She does not know where to go. She looks to Fenris and finds he has as little answers as she. So they keep moving. And they stay together. It is just them. It is just them against a world that thinks they know them. Hawke doesn't intend to go quietly.

* * *

"When did you know?"

Hawke and Fenris are lying together on the leaf-covered floor of the wood just beyond Wildervale. Winter has begun to set in and Hawke puffs a breath into the air to watch it rise in a cloud after her question. It is night. It is Isabela's watch somewhere out of earshot. The others are asleep and Hawke and Fenris have taken to sharing blankets and bed rolls in the chill evenings.

Fenris grunts in half sleep, the timber of his voice rumbling through his throat. "Know what?" His question is followed by his arm tightening around Hawke's waist and pulling her closer to him. She nuzzles into his warmth and pulls a blanket further up their shoulders. His eyes are closed, still trying to lull into sleep while Hawke lays restlessly beside him, staring at the stars above.

"That you loved me?"

Fenris opens one eye to watch Hawke as she stars up into the night. She is not looking at his face, too preoccupied with the light above and he has to smile at the way she asks as though she already knows, as though she does not need to look at him to know the answer in his face.

"I have made no such declaration."

Hawke looks at him quickly, opens her mouth in mock offense and moves to swat at his arm, but his hold around her body tightens in response to hold her arms to her and he cannot help the chuckle that leaves his lips at her frustration. She huffs and narrows her eyes at him but relaxes in his hold.

"And you never will if I leave it up to you," she retorts playfully.

Fenris moves his lips to her neck and revels in the sharp intake of breath that escapes her lips when he presses his warm mouth to the cold skin of her neck. He feels the soft rumble of a moan as he moves his lips against her skin.

"When?" she asks breathlessly.

Fenris sighs against her neck and pulls back to look at her. There is something in her eyes that tells him she needs this. He raises himself up slightly and rests his cheek in his palm, his elbow braced against the ground as he looks down at her.

"Perhaps it was when you called Carver a whiny piece of Darkspawn shit."

Hawke laughed loudly and then slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from waking the others. "How do you even remember that?" she whispered sharply between laughing and gasping for air.

Fenris smiled down at her and she lost herself to the sight. "It was a memorable moment."

She quirked a brow at him. "That can't be it. Because if it is, I should probably re-evaluate this relationship." The fact that she can even say the word "relationship" and receive not a blink from Fenris still astounds her. But she's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She simply smiles back at him.

"You know, you are correct. It was not that moment. Rather, it was when Anders asked you to join him at the Laughing Crow tavern for dinner and you obliviously invited the rest of us." He found himself chuckling softly at the memory before he noticed Hawke's averted gaze, her slight shift against him. He found her lips with his quickly, pulled her attention back to him. He shouldn't have brought up Anders. It was too soon. And he wouldn't let her go back to that dark place. He released her mouth with a playful nip to her lips and she fluttered her heavy eyelids open to watch him through burning amber eyes.

"Perhaps it was when you lashed into me that night in my mansion."

Hawke blinks and falls into the memory, recalling the heavy, loaded words they slung at each other, the way he had slammed her into the wall and she had flung him away with a mind blast, her guard coming up again quickly in hurt disbelief.

His mouth is close to her neck again and she finds herself leaning her body closer toward him.

"Everything you said was right. And I was too foolish and proud to understand the value of your words." His breath is hot against her skin.

She swallows heavily and turns her gaze back to the stars, something to focus on.

"Perhaps it was when you first allowed me the taste of your skin." His tongue flicks out and swipes along her neck slowly, languidly, and she closes her eyes to the sensation, her breathing suddenly heavier.

"Or when you asked me to stay. And I knew I could not go back to the way I was, even if I walked from your room." His hold on her loosens and he pulls a hand to glide gently across her stomach, and beneath her cotton shirt, ghosting across her skin in a way that makes her tremble fiercely.

"When you proved your strength to me in the Fade of Feynriel's mind."

Another slow swipe of his tongue along her skin. She reaches a hand to his chest and feels his heart beat beneath her touch.

"When you cried your pain and vulnerability into my arms that night in your library."

Hawke squeezes her eyes tightly to the memory, pushing the thought from her mind and she doesn't need to try hard because Fenris' fingers whisper across her ribcage and pull a soft gasp from her mouth

"When you stood victorious over the body of a Qunari lord."

The slight nip of his teeth along her skin and she turns fully into his arms, her fingers reaching for his jaw, wanting to watch that beautiful mouth as he speaks.

"When you reached for me at my funeral." His voice quakes slightly here and Hawke finds herself planting soft kisses along his jaw this time. He sighs into her hair.

"When you challenged a city-state."

Hawke's kiss against his jaw is interrupted by her slight laugh. The feeling is warm and welcomed against his skin.

"When you kiss me as though I matter."

Hawke catches his gaze just before she moves her lips to his and slides their warmth together. Her fingers are against his jaw, holding his mouth to hers. He shifts them so that he is braced atop her. His hand is gripping the bare skin of her hip and he can't help but push closer to her, slide his chest into hers and move his mouth against hers roughly, sliding his tongue languidly along her own . She opens to him and sighs into his mouth, her moan shaking them both as Fenris pulls from her slowly, breathless. His gaze is dark and hooded and she needs his hands on her in ways she's afraid to speak of.

"I have loved you a thousand times in a thousand different ways." The grated smoke of his voice rolls over her and she drops her gaze to his lips unconsciously, licking her own in response. His voice brings her back and his hand on her neck makes her chest ache. "I cannot know what is to come. But I want to meet this world with you."

Her breath is caught somewhere between her throat and his mouth, his lips tender this time, soft and momentary. When he pulls away she is no longer trembling.

"And you?" His voice is tentative in a way Hawke has never heard from him.

She blinks through her haze at Fenris, watching his green eyes shift to search her, his arms bracing his form above her. For a moment she can only think of his lips and his tongue and his hands. But she knows what he's asking. And she swallows thickly, eyeing him with a vulnerability he has never seen in her.

"When you said my name." Her voice is a plea and Fenris answers with his touch, his lips moving to her neck and she arches into him, his whisper ghosting across her flesh in a tremble of passion.

"Rahna."

* * *

Rahna remembers the boat ride across the dark waters on their way to the Gallows, just before the major battle erupted between mage and templar. Minutes and seconds passing by in shallow mockery of their lives. Her hands tremble in anxious anticipation, gripping her staff, running her fingers along the smooth wood up toward the sharp curved blade topping the staff. She nicks her finger, pulls the tip to her mouth to suck the blood away. She will not suffer blood to mix with her magic now. She finds this trembling is not of fear. It is a fire lighting its way along her skin. Fury and fortitude blossom beneath her skin and she begins to understand something she had not before. This coming battle cannot end without her standing above Meredith's corpse. She knows she will have only a moment of relief, of checking body parts and companions before the running starts. She wonders who will be running alongside her when that moment comes.

Hawke pulls in a deep breath, flutters her eyelids closed, reaches into the Fade and spreads her fingers through the magic weaving before her, itching her fingertips along the web of enchantment constantly filtering through the consciousness of all mortals. There is comfort here. There is reassurance that all the deaths will mean something. They will _have_ to mean something. Hawke cannot fight any other way. She opens her eyes to the approaching prison towering over the dark waters. This can only end in one way. And Maker have mercy on the souls who stand in her path.

She knew she'd find Merrill next to her on the boat. There was never a question of where the elf stood. Hawke watches Merril as their boat wades through the thick waters. She is hunched over some trinket in her hands, some remembrance of her clan. She is whispering something dark and yet perseverant and defiant. Something clawing free of the blackness is breaking through her voice and Hawke hears Merrill's pleading whispers to the Dread Wolf carry across the wind to her ears. There is no mention of Hawke and their companions. There is not even mention of her own life. There is only the mention of innocents, only the pleas for mercy amongst the blind, only the hope of peace and breath and life in the coming moments, for those who cannot help their part in this war. Hawke wants to remind herself of the blood magic that Merrill wields so freely. She wants to remind herself that the elf has made deals with demons that cost more than lives. She wants to remind herself that good intentions do not cleanse oneself of blood. But she cannot blame the elf. And she cannot hate the elf. She can only watch in solemn understanding the soft prayers that leave Merrill's lips. She can only join her in her hope of some life leaving this unscathed. She knows it will not be hers.

In a way, she had expected to not find Aveline at her side, the Guard Captain being probably the only person Hawke could imagine respecting from the other side of the line drawn. Even in her surprise, Hawke watches Aveline at the rear of the boat. The Guard Captain is watching the water behind them, watching the path they leave behind. She raises her gaze to the passing dwellings along the waterside, watches the citizens board their windows and turn out their gas lamps. In a way, Hawke should have know she'd be taking this boat ride, should have known Aveline would always be there to protect those who could not protect themselves. Hawke doesn't know that Aveline had met Donnic briefly before they left for the Gallows. It was momentary and fleeting and surrounded by a burning Kirkwall. They had just cleared an alley of templars cornering three fleeing mages. The mages had run in their freedom, and Aveline had found herself moving to Donnic without reservation, without care for her Guardsmen watching. She had flung her arms around his shoulders and kissed him in a relief that tasted of sweat and blood, his own hands coming up to hold her face against his.

They had only seconds before the erupting flame of the collapsing building beside them rushed them out of the alley. Aveline grasped Donnic's arm, eyed him levelly and said firmly "I will not abandon Hawke." No apology, no excuse, no negotiation. Donnic had simply nodded and answered "Then I will find you when the battle is over."

Aveline nodded, raised her sword toward the Gallows beyond the docks and called to her Guardsmen to rally around the citizens. Her orders to gather any injured and round them at the barracks, to rush the citizens in Lowtown from the bombarded quarter to safety, to focus solely on the unarmed civilian were shouted through the streets. The Guardsmen rushed into action. Donnic rallied his platoon and there was only the briefest of moments where he and Aveline locked eyes. A moment to share all that needed to be said. And she knew then that he _would_ find her. There was no doubt in her mind. They turned to run through separate alleys and when Aveline had found herself at Hawke's side, there was no trepidation in her sword-arc, no wavering to her stance. She had a husband to find when this horrible mess was quelled. And there were lives that needed saving. Aveline had never run from a fight in her life.

There would have been no malice meant for the absences Hawke expected of Varric and Isabela, something in their flighty natures made it difficult to imagine them on her side of the fight, instead gathering their gold and reputations on their way to someplace that prides itself on its lack of politics. She would never ask them to stay and fight with her.

Watching the story-telling dwarf now, Hawke thinks that Varric might just be in this for the story, for the unadulterated literary material that comes with "The Champion against a City", all copyrights pursuant to one Varric Tethras. She had not thought to find him on this boat otherwise. And in a moment of disbelief and doubt of character Hawke had sidled up next to him, her mouth thick with question, her tongue fuzzy with confusion.

"If I'd have placed a bet you'd be riding this boat with me, I'd have lost."

Varric only looks at Hawke, his hands gripping Bianca, shaking in a fear he didn't think he'd ever be capable of. And it had nothing to do with his own life. There was too much at stake here to think his life made any difference in the scale. No. This fear was not about him. This fear was about walls. Strategically erected and constantly fortified. Walls that crumbled with a single man's action. Varric had never liked open spaces. Walls reminded him of that never-seen but always held-dear home, of the Stone, of guidance, of some kind of order the world still tried to follow. Stories can't be written without plot. Lives cannot be molded without form. Entering the Gallows meant no more walls, no more clear-cut direction, no more boundaries. The next coming moments would be a free-for-all. The next coming years would be a bloodbath. In a way, Varric was angry Hawke could not understand this fear. Varric had a place in the previous order. Now, anything was possible. And most of the possibilities didn't end in merciful death.

Varric eyes Hawke as she lays her hands against the rail of the boat, leaning back in feigned nonchalance, knowing that nothing could be farther from the truth. He chuckles softly, because he thinks Hawke needs that right now. "You never were good at gambling."

There is something grateful in Hawke's smirk.

Isabela is leaning her elbows along the boat, reveling in the sad, brief experience of wind and sea and wave. She knows it won't last. She knows it is small and insufficient. But she takes pleasure in the few minutes she can watch the surf before she needs to bring her steel to throats too young to know of mysterious blue and helpless love. She breathes in the salt sweet aroma and twists her neck to catch the swirling, free brushes of ocean-swept wind.

She tells herself that she is simply paying Hawke back for that terrible Qunari business that left her groundside for years. Once this fight is through she'll be back to the sea where she belongs, captaining her own ship once again. Hawke had been dragged into being Champion. Isabela knew the mage had not asked for the honor, had not fought for the right. She had fought for reasons too many for Isabela to even enumerate but it was never for the title. She half expects Hawke had intended to die in the fight against the Arishok. And yet, still she stood. And still she met Isabela with a smile when she returned, wary and cautious but a smile nonetheless. Still Hawke had offered the olive branch of her own vulnerability and Isabela was not one to waste opportunity.

She sighs as she looks toward the Gallows looming closer across the water. She had lied. She knew. This was not paying a debt. Because Isabela figures the fight, the real one, the actual war she's sure started about half a day ago, won't be won here. It will go on. Isabela has learned to recognize the temporary and the infinite. Hawke will not be able to walk away from the Gallows as any kind of victor. And she'll need an Isabela when the running starts. Hawke called and she answered, just as she promised.

Shaking her head at her own judgment, her eyes rolled heavenward, Isabela relishes the soothing sound of water lapping at their boat. She knows it won't last.

Hawke finds Fenris leaning his back against the opposite side of the boat, watching her. His stare is not one of caution, it is not one of question, or wariness or even confusion. And Hawke figures confusion is the least she can expect from him with this turn of events. She could never imagine asking him for his sword in this fight. She could never imagine him granting it.

But she never asked him to stand with her. She never pled her case and listed the inhumanities forced on the mages. She never tried to turn the argument into a pity case, never tried to beg his help in the fight against tyrants. This was never how it was. Magic was never a pity, never a haunting, never a curse. It was a burden, yes, but a burden of greatness, demanding strength of character more than strength of mana. Magic was a test of the Maker. Magic was man's gift of greatness. Their struggle was always one of power, within their societies, within their religions, within themselves. Magic was a responsibility for those both wielding and not. How man treated their own, how man embraced or denied magic, how man strived for goodness through the blood and the blame, these were the definitions of their age. It was never a question of man against the magic, it was a question of man _within_ the magic. This war was a blinding recognition of failures on both sides. Hawke knew this. Hawke knew that naturally she'd have to choose the side of mage, no matter the atrocities she'd seen. And she knew Fenris could not make the same choice.

She'd be lying if she said she hasn't laid awake at nights preparing for this. She'd imagine watching him from the opposite side of his blood-stained greatsword. But here he stands. And she could never imagine his eyes at this moment. His stare seems a demand. She chuckles softly at the thought. She had called him selfish once, and he would not shy away from it now. But when she thinks on it, she figures he of all people should be allowed a little selfishness. His stare presents a deal to Hawke. He offers his help, his protection, and only because it is _her_ life at stake here, in exchange for the understanding that it is only _her_ life that concerns him any longer. He has already put his to rest. He has already had his funeral for Leto.

There is no backing down from this moment. No back-peddling of time, no distraction with false words and useless platitudes. This is Fenris. This is Fenris ready to be in it. Knee-deep and muddied and inescapable. This is Fenris when he is terrified and shaking and unable to understand why, _why_ he wants to be so vulnerable with her. Unable to understand how he could stand his own weakness when around her. Unable to understand why it thrills him so to see her like this, angry and righteous and trembling.

She shoves away from the rail of the boat and steps before him. Her back is stiff and straight, her eyes unwavering from his. She understands as much as he does, what they may each lose, what they may each take away scarred and tainted from this union. They have each known enough dead and known enough dying to risk this exhilarating, unknowable tangle of emotion. They have each loathed enough to risk love.

His hand finds her neck, cradles her jaw before he leans in harshly, pulls her lips to his as though he is a man drowning. His hand on her hip tells her he's not leaving. Her breath in his mouth tells him she's ready.

They dive into the wild dark, fingers laced tightly.


End file.
